


Visions of Gideon

by Agib



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Accidents, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Getting Together, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Near Death Experiences, Not Really Character Death, Pining, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Team as Family, There's a tag for Pre-Slash and a tag for Established Relationship but what about INBETWEEN THAT, Visions, Well I mean it's implied, Whump, Worried Derek Morgan, i guess that works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23663869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Agib/pseuds/Agib
Summary: Reid is shot in an accident which is entirely unrelated to a case the team has been working.OrAn incredibly loose song fic.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Jason Gideon & Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Comments: 107
Kudos: 766





	1. Introduction & Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely based on (more like inspired by) Visions of Gideon by Sufjan Stevens.
> 
> \----
> 
> Uh, probably definitely moreid.
> 
>   
> \----

“You know, we’re only about three hours away from Yellowstone National Park,” Reid points out. Hotch hardly glances in his direction, busy in a discussion with the head of the local police department concerning the _case they were supposed to be working on_ , Spencer reminds himself.

It wasn’t a particularly gruesome one. No bodies had been found yet, thankfully. Garcia had been appreciative of that fact during the rundown back at the conference room in Quantico. Seven people were missing though. Since last Friday.

He tenses instinctively as he feels a pressure at the junction of his shoulder.

“If we get this solved without any bodies turning up, Hotch might let us convince him to delay the jet back for a day-trip,” Morgan murmurs from his side. Reid grins subtly at the tips of his work shoes, choosing to ignore the rather morbid hope that they could get this case wrapped without any death involved and instead focusing on the warm palm resting against his shoulder.

“Two hundred miles is far enough, maybe the jet could meet us closer to Yellowstone,” Emily says. Her heels click against the concrete steps they all ascend.

“One-sixty,” Reid corrects. “Point three.” The hand on his shoulder falls away, and he’s left without the warmth, but met with a fond chuckle. The heat spreads on his cheeks, and he wipes the smile off his face as the team enters the police department.

Riverton, Wyoming had a population barely brushing ten thousand, so it was no surprise that the building was mainly one large room filled with desks and uniformed officers with coffee-cups in hand.

Morgan notices the caffeine as he does.

“You talk to Hotch about getting set up somewhere to develop a geographical profile, I’ll slip you a cup in a few minutes,” the older man says conspiratorially. The flush spreads partway down his neck as he realises his co-worker must have noticed him nodding off on the jet once their initial case discussion died down.

“Thank you,” he whispers as the team begins to break off in clumps.

Hotch is already sectioning off different plans of action for each of them, and wordlessly nods towards a cleared desk when Reid approaches.

“There’s a town map in the break room, station captain says feel free to tear it down and get to work.”

As the captain promised, there’s a large map hung on the wall of the break room. Once he’s managed to carefully remove it from the frame, photocopy it and lay the fresh sheet out on the desk that’s been cleared for him, Morgan has located the coffee machine. He places a steaming paper cup beside his elbow like it’s part of routine before departing to speak with Hotch about viewing the abduction sites.

Soon enough everyone’s settled in. Prentiss and Rossi have been tasked with questioning the various partners and parents of the abducted, hoping to find some common ground between all the victims. Hotch and Morgan are already out surveying the abduction sites with a few of the local officers. Thankfully, the media in Riverton isn’t entirely monstrous, and JJ is able to confer with them over the phone at the desk opposite him.

With red pins for the abduction sites, green pins for places the victim’s frequented and yellow for any potentially relevant information Garcia is able to give him through her own research, he can’t make out an obvious pattern, but there’s something to come and he can feel it. Whatever Prentiss and Rossi manage to get from their task will likely push the profile along further, he tells himself, leaning back idly in his chair.

“Nothing yet?” JJ asks as she watches him recline. He shakes his head before gesturing to the phone beside her playing ‘on-hold’ music.

“You either?” She shakes her head as he did, looking bored.

\----

He’s two coffee’s deep, not including the one so kindly brewed for him, by the time Hotch returns with a contemplative Morgan in tow. Reid can’t help but perk up at the welcomed intrusion.

“We just got word from Prentiss and Rossi,” Hotch explains. “There’s a bar downtown that at least six of the seven victims were confirmed to have visited in the days leading to their disappearance.”

“They’re going to meet with the staff and owner of the bar tomorrow morning,” Morgan adds as he places himself in a spare chair and scoots closer to Reid’s desk. JJ holds a thumbs-up for the three of them as she’s taken off hold.

“Morgan, can you talk with Garcia and see if she can find anything more relating to the bar or the victims before we clock-off for tonight?” Hotch is met with a deft nod from Morgan before he retreats into the captain’s office to run him down on what they’ve found.

“So, where’s this bar?” Reid asks seriously, hunching back over the map as Morgan glances over the assortment of pins and annotations. He bats at the page near Reid’s wrist, and watches as the younger agent shuffles several pins, placing a white one where the bar sits.

“Baby Girl,” Morgan greets into his phone, still watching Reid as he settles back into his rhythm. His tie keeps untucking itself and drooping over the map, and it’s eventually shoved back beneath the grey sweater vest by an output looking Reid. His forehead is crinkled with concentration lines as he runs fingers over the page, muttering quietly to himself.

Morgan sighs, half listening to Garcia’s chatter through the line.

“Resident genius stressing himself out?” She inquires, somehow interpreting the worry in Morgan’s sigh.

“You bet,” he answers. “I’ll have to drag him back to the hotel once Hotch sends us home by the looks of it.” At his side, Spencer huffs, sending a half-hearted glare in his direction before turning back to the map.

Garcia hisses something rather non-work appropriate down the phone and Morgan laughs from deep in his gut as he watches Reid chewing a pen cap. “I wouldn’t disgrace a hotel room paid for by the bureau like that,” he quips.

JJ looks up at him as she hangs up the phone, raising one eyebrow in his direction. Garcia cackles in amusement, loud enough for JJ to hear despite the fact that she’s not on speakerphone. She nods in understanding, laughing to herself exasperatedly.

Spencer pays them no mind, still talking under his breath as he studies the page before him.

“Pretty Boy,” Morgan says quietly. He receives a distracted hum in reply.

Morgan tucks his phone where Penelope still giggles between his ear and shoulder as he leans across the desk. He picks up the hand Reid has splayed against the paper to keep it flat and squeezes it once in reassurance.

Spencer’s face heats and he turns away from the map, finally, to down the remainder of his third coffee. Yet, he doesn’t pull his hand away from Morgan’s embrace.

The door to the captain’s office opens, blinds swinging as Hotch steps out, looking tired but satisfied.

“Alright, thank you for the help today, agent.”

“Couldn’t have done much without the support of your officers and transportation, captain.” Hotch smiles in a friendly manor before clapping his palms together and turning towards the team. “Prentiss and Rossi are already making their way to the hotel,” he begins.

Reid’s hand slips away and Morgan allows it as he finishes his conversation with Penelope, wishing her a good night and snapping the phone shut again as he stands. “We’ll start again tomorrow morning with the new leads.” Hotch turns more specifically to JJ and Reid’s temporary desks. “How’re the media?”

“Complicit and surprisingly understanding,” she answers happily.

“Alright,” Hotch picks up his jacket, already beginning to pull it on. “If they stay that way, maybe you can go with Prentiss and Rossi to speak with the bar employees tomorrow then.” She nods, looking sated enough with the new task. “Reid,” Hotch announces, taking in the multiple coffee cups and array of pins littered over the map. “No need to bring that with you to the hotel tonight.” His tone is clear enough for the genius to read. It’s not a light suggestion, he’s in caretaker role now, worrying over the state of the team and their sleep-deprived, stressed youngest member who never seems to give himself a break during cases like this.

The cases that could tilt any which way. They could find their unsub and a room with seven long deceased bodies. Or the families and significant others could be given good news regarding their missing loved ones.

“Understood,” Spencer complies.

“Atta boy,” Morgan jokes, clapping a hand on his back with a grin. “Now,” he says, turning to Hotch. “What’s the word on budget cuts and rooming situations tonight?”

“Two singles in three booked rooms,” Hotch states plainly. “David and I rooming together.”

“Girls night for Emily and me then,” JJ points out excitedly. She looks in Morgan’s direction, grinning at him knowingly as he pulls his coat over his shoulders. Only briefly does she look Spencer’s way. He’s entirely oblivious to the situation, to the weight in Derek’s glance and JJ’s expression as he packs up his pens, pins and scattering of coffee cups.

“We’ll have an officer drop you off,” the captain offers. Hotch departs with a final thanks, and the four of them, with the addition of the officer, trudge through the parking lot.

\----

Their go-bags are laid out on the two separate single beds when Spencer pokes his head into the largely beige hotel room. He hears Derek bidding a good night to the girls before arranging a wake-up call time with Hotch before the door slips shut behind him.

“Oh, tell me you didn’t, Pretty Boy,” the man grinds out.

Spencer sheepishly lays the smaller photocopy of his annotated map on the bedside table and turns around to face his incredibly agitated looking roommate for the night.

“I may have,” he says softly.

“Hotch would end you if he found out.” Spencer shrugs, flicking the switch on the kettle and beginning to rifle through the cabinets before he finds a packet of instant coffee with a mug. “Uh-uh,” he hears as he places a jar of sugar down on the counter beside his cup.

Two large hands grip his upper arms. He resists the urge to shiver. “I don’t think my conscience can handle this if I ignore it,” Derek mumbles.

Spencer feels his hips nudge against the counter as he’s pressed forward with the man’s attempt to flick off the kettle’s switch.

“Mmm,” he sighs, tilting his head back until it’s leant against a sturdy shoulder. “You know, the Pavlovian response a warm drink inspires could arguably improve sleep. Even if it happens to be a slightly _caffeinated_ warm drink.”

“And what’s your word on the several heaped teaspoons of sugar you have in ‘warm drinks?’”

“No comment,” Spencer murmurs.

Derek’s hands tighten a fraction before pulling away as he steps back entirely. Spencer traces one gentle finger over the patterning of the countertop as he listens to the sound of his co worker rifling around the room.

“Game’s on tonight,” Morgan says from the couch. Although he watches Spencer pack up what he had intended on using to make coffee, he frowns as the man unfolds the page-sized copy of his map he must have smuggled out of the precinct in his pocket. 

Spencer settles himself on the other side of the two-seater couch, looking perfectly content as he begins to continue his work. “Haven’t you exerted that big brain of yours enough for one day?” Derek faces the T.V as he speaks, but Spencer understands him well enough that the question was directed at him.

He tilts his head, looking at the slightly older agent. The concern Derek keeps carefully hidden under his expression – not well enough for Spencer to miss – is enrapturing. He knows the man wouldn’t stop him from working at this point, and although Morgan clearly doesn’t appreciate Spencer’s inability to relax and let himself wind down for the night, he doesn’t expect his friend would report his workaholic attitude to Hotch this time.

“Thank you,” Spencer says quietly as he leans over onto Derek’s half of the couch. Without much thought, for fear of over contemplating the simplicity in his action, he presses a chaste, second-long kiss against Derek’s temple before resettling himself in the opposite corner of the seat.

“Uh, you – you’re um,” Derek coughs, turns up the volume on the T.V out of habit. “You’re welcome.” He blows out a long, silent breath of air, resisting the urge to touch his forehead as if he could work out from feel alone whether he had imagined the fleeting encounter. “Don’t tire yourself out,” he croaks before forcing his attention on the T.V.

\----

By the time the game has finished, Spencer’s weight is folded up into a small ball where he rests, eyes closed, breathing even, against the arm of the couch.

Briefly, Derek considers draping the sheet from one of their beds over the genius, but he knows waking up to a crook in your neck is unpleasant and distracting at best. He contemplates simply carrying the much smaller man to his bed for the night, but again, the man rejects almost all intimate touch he doesn’t choose to initiate himself.

“Spence,” he whispers. “Spencer,” he tries again. He eventually places one gentle hand against the man’s knee, jostling one leg very carefully.

“Mmm, st’p it.”

“Spence, c’mon. We’re in a hotel for a reason, you could’ve just taken the couch in the break room if you love them this much.”

“Why’re you JJ’ing me…” Spencer complains, shifting about in his daze. “Such a mother-hen,” he groans when the jostling at his leg becomes more insistent.

“Reid.”

“Fine, ‘m up. I’m up.” He barely opens his eyes as he moves towards the bed, operating on memory alone. He shoves decorative throw pillows to the floor as he sinks into the comfortable support of a hotel room’s mattress. “M’kay, you were right,” he sighs. “This is much better than a couch…”

Derek muffles his amusement, peeling his sheets back and clambering into his own bed. He gives the shadowy form of his best friend a final once-over before flicking off the bedside lamp. The light of the muted T.V bathes Spencer’s side of the room in a light wash of blue, and he’s quietly glad for the absence of complete darkness.

\----

Morgan is somewhat thankful his alarm doesn’t wake Reid the following morning. He does, however, mildly regret allowing his wakeup call to be a knock at the door from a half-awake Hotch.

“Can I have that coffee now?” The genius asks tiredly, rubbing the heel of his palm against his eye socket as he shuffles towards the kettle.

“On the counter,” Morgan answers.

He may be somewhat offended the sight of steaming coffee widens Spencer’s eyes until he’s alert, and not the shirtless, fresh-out-of-the-shower state of himself. But then again, that’s typical for the younger agent. He doesn’t often take stock of his surroundings when caffeine is involved.

Morgan watches him, idly nursing at his own cup as he towel dries the back of his neck before moving to dress for the day.

“Thanks again,” Reid says as they join the rest of the team in the hall, go-bags in hand. “For last night.”

Prentiss whistles as she passes them, eyebrows raised halfway to the ceiling.

“Settle down, he fell asleep on the couch,” Morgan retorts. He turns back to face Reid, lopsided grin painting his features. “It’s no problem, Pretty Boy. Need that big brain functioning today if we want to wrap this up and get to Yellowstone with our sanity intact.”

Hotch glances back at them, narrowing one eye at the mention of Yellowstone. _Focus on the case, for now,_ his expression reads loud and clear.

They’re driven back to the precinct in two patrol cars. Hotch, Rossi and Prentiss take the first. JJ manages to snag shotgun, leaving Morgan and Reid to sit backseat.

Spencer finds himself relaxing beneath the hand Derek splays against his knee, keeping his eyes forward and continuing to engage in tactical discussion with the officer in the driver’s seat.

Morgan watches the flush growing across the younger agents face before easily letting his hand fall to his side as they exit the vehicle. “Another?” He asks as they enter the precinct, gesturing to the break room where the coffee machine sits.

“Please,” Reid manages as he takes the seat in front of his map, still laid out across the temporary desk where he left it. “You know me too well,” he grins as the cup is placed by his side after several minutes.

“What, you expected less of me?” Morgan laughs over his shoulder tenderly, making his way into the captain’s office with Hotch.

Spencer smiles fondly into his second coffee, arranging stationary and unfolding the page-sized copy of his map. JJ glances in Emily’s direction.

“You gonna get on that, Boy Wonder?”

He spins in his chair, facing the two girls and quirking his head to the side.

“What do you mean?”

JJ elbows Prentiss as she sits at her own desk. _Leave him be,_ her face says, ever the mother.

“Garcia found us some home addresses of the bartenders and security guards working the nights our victims visited the bar,” Rossi says to the dark-haired woman. Prentiss straightens in her chair. “JJ, Hotch mentioned you might be joining us?”

“The press aren’t biting much, I can swing it,” she responds casually. “You alright here with the geographical profile until we get some more information?” Reid nods, already flattening out his papers and readjusting pins.

“I think Hotch and Morgan are heading to the bar to go over some of the security footage,” he points out. “I’ll be okay here.” Prentiss is already following Rossi to the carpark, and JJ touches his head.

“I’ll convince them to stop for some real coffee,” she promises with a wave before following them out the door.

Reid polishes off his cup, sets down his pen and makes his way to the office where the open door gives him ample view of where Morgan leans against the frame while Hotch speaks with the captain.

“You guys heading out?” He asks, politely waiting for a lull in conversation.

“Quarter of an hour,” Morgan answers.

“I’m just waiting for some of my men to bring a witness in for questioning,” the captain explains. “Paperwork, supervision, the whole nine yards.”

“I understand that,” Hotch says, the hint of a smile playing on his lips. Morgan rolls his eyes, following Reid back into the open area of the precinct.

He slumps in the desk chair JJ had inhabited, rolling himself around the desks until he’s reclined comfortably beside the resident genius.

Reid is happily entertaining himself with the newfound information Garcia’s managed to dredge up for him. Morgan is at his side, chuckling at his phone.

_**Penelope, Today at 10:43am:** _

_Chocolate Thunder, why in the world is Emily asking me whether you’re going to climb our squishy little Boy Wonder like a tree?_

Morgan chokes on air, glancing up in Reid’s direction before looking down again at his phone.

“Is that Garcia? Do you mind asking her if she managed to find the fifth victim’s route to work?”

“Uh, her mind is currently elsewhere,” he says, deliberately cryptic. Spencer turns in his chair, craning his neck to see the older agent’s phone. “Oh, nuh-uh, this is strictly PG thirteen. Adult talk, kid,” he laughs, tilting the phone screen out of his line of vision.

Spencer opens his mouth to snap something along the lines of _’you’re barely six years older than me, and I hardly qualify as a kid, Morgan,’_ when the captain moves from his office. He sidesteps the desks and makes his way to the front door where three officers are shepherding an alarmingly disgruntled looking man to the front desk for fingerprinting.

Hotch stands by Morgan’s side, one hand resting on his hip beside the holster he wears.

“He’s just going to sign in this witness, and we’ll head off,” he clarifies. “Guy saw someone smashing up his ex’s car, decided to report it, didn’t think he’d actually be brought in for proper questioning.”

“Small towns,” Morgan mutters. The two of them wait patiently for the captain to finish up, watching as the witness hands over a large – and likely unneeded – hunting knife to be kept safe as he’s questioned. “Jesus,” Morgan huffs with gall.

“Alright,” the captain says once he’s finally finished and approaching them. Hotch jerks his head for Morgan to follow and gives Reid a look which reads similarly to JJ’s _you gonna be alright here?_ face.

Spencer gives a rather lazily belated thumbs-up and watches the unit chief begin to follow the captain out towards the front doors. Morgan stays sat in his chair for a moment longer, looking in his direction.

“Two cups maximum while I’m gone, please?” His tone is serious, but his expression reads as predominantly humorous. “I really don’t need you with the jitters if we’re going to wind up staying another night at the hotel.”

“Be it as you wish,” he grants with one hand raised. Derek shakes his head fondly before standing to follow Hotch.

Spencer waits for Morgan to trek around the rows of desks to bypass where one officer is escorting the witness towards his own desk before he stands, stretching to dump his finished paper cup in the nearest bin.

He gives a small wave to his co-worker as he nears the door to leave, planning on brewing himself a third coffee when there’s a blurry commotion of movement from behind him. It’s followed by a deafening pop.

Now, it’s the kind of noise he hates to admit he knows too well. With their line of work, one becomes familiarised with the often abrasive and life-threatening sound of gunfire.

Spencer himself has never quite managed to adjust to the sound, but Derek – somebody who spent years working as a Chicago PD officer, not to mention his time in their bomb squad – regretfully enough, is so accustomed to the commotion that it takes him a moment to register the direct consequences of such.

Namely, the unexpected sound of the nearby vending machine glass shattering to his left.

Or, more importantly, the quickly blossoming crimson which begins to spread across Spencer’s chest.


	2. Climax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I've tried to be as medically accurate as I possibly can but obviously I'm not a doctor, so please keep that in mind. The same for everything I've ever written, because I get stuff wrong all the time.
> 
> Anyway, don't take medical knowledge from anything I write, but try enjoy reading it.

Derek Morgan was well used to the sound of a gunshot by now. The noise triggered instincts, made his hand dart to the weapon hanging safely at his own side, back straightening, eyes narrowing.

He registered the cracked vending machine and the scattering of glass coating the floor in front of it. 

It just took him a moment to comprehend what the redness suddenly defiling his co-workers dress shirt meant.

Red meant stop. Red meant warning. Red meant infection and blood and hardly ever anything positive.

But none of that mattered right now because Morgan desperately needed to cross half the room _before_ Spencer’s pain receptors started working. As familiar as the sound of gunfire was to him, he didn’t need the consequences of shots fired etched into him either.

Morgan managed to get to the younger man’s desk as his knees decide to take their leave of absence when they buckle under the kid’s weight.

“Hey, alright. Okay – I’ve got you.” He darts forward in time to get one arm hooked beneath the boy’s shoulder, helping ease the inevitable decent they both take to the floor.

Morgan finds himself – as hard as it is – tearing his eyes off the man to glance in the direction of the doors.

_“HOTCH!”_ He screams, the desperation raw and unbidden in his tone. The abruptness, the way his vocal cords shudder with the force of his cries, it reminds him too much of the news report. Cyrus’ compound. Reid, a captive without his gun or a profile to work from, with no line of contact between them.

But, like then, when things had gone awry and Morgan is yelling himself hoarse for Hotch, their unit chief pulls through.

Hell, by now the man could probably recognise the sound of each team member’s screams.

The door to the precinct opens with a clatter of glass against glass.

“Hotch –” He calls again, rougher this time. There’s less urgency and much more hopeless devastation this time around. He can hear the shouts of ‘officer down’ and multiple radios for medical assistance. Morgan turns his attention back to his colleague.

Reid is laid flat against the linoleum. His eyes are open, although he’s staring straight up into the fluorescent lights. His throat constricts repeatedly as he swallows, the curve of his neck arching on every failed breath. He doesn’t seem to notice the yelling.

When Morgan can make out Hotch in the corner of his vision, he starts babbling. He can’t help it – not really. Not when Spencer’s sprawled across the floor, eyes widening and dilating oddly as he makes noises eerily similar to those he made on the floor of Hankel’s cabin.

“Hotch – he isn’t – he’s not... Help, I don’t know wh –”

And suddenly Hotch is dropping to the floor too.

He’s knees smack against the ground hard enough to bruise, hands immediately flurrying into action after only a moments observation of the situation.

“Turn him on his side – help me – wound side down. There you go.” Hotch has both hands placed on Reid’s torso, largely guiding Morgan who does the heavy lifting. Spencer’s no help, he barely notices the manhandling, eyes rolling around like marbles inside his head.

Derek watches his friend in a horrifyingly detached fashion. He takes in the rapidly paling skin, how Spencer’s fingernails scrabble intermittently with the cracks in the linoleum, his weight sagging entirely until Hotch is the only thing keeping him upright.

“Morgan? _Morgan._ ” He snaps. “I need you to focus right now.”

Morgan looks up for a moment, turning away from his best friend to meet steely eyes, almost darker than his own. “You need to cover the entry wound and keep pressure, okay?” He blinks, shuddering as he glances back at the hole in Reid’s dress shirt. “Morgan, _now._ If enough outside air gets in, it’ll surround his lung and collapse it.”

Something about the urgency and the tension in his superior’s limbs, kicks Morgan into action. It’s the unrelentingly stoic man he’s worked alongside for years struggling under the impending loss of his youngest agent which forces the adaptability back into Morgan’s system.

He positions himself at Reid’s side, popping two buttons on the man’s shirt and gently pressing down over the worst of his bloodied chest with a wince.

Spencer gargles something, a choked whine forced out of his pale lips as the wound is covered. His eyes refocus, finding Derek’s.

There’s blood coating the inside of his lips when he speaks.

“St’p,” he gasps. “Please… hurts – don’t – _Morg’n._ ” The kid wheezes when Morgan continues to hold pressure, sending several small flecks of crimson over his cheeks, like grotesquely twisted freckles. He cries out, coughing weakly over another moan. It’s a sickly noise. It’s frantic and frothy as he writhes weakly under the older man’s grip.

“I’m sorry,” Derek hisses. “I’m sorry – I’m _sorry_ , I have to – you know I have to.” It’s the sob that makes him doubt his actions, as necessary as they are. 

Reid _sobs_. 

Just once. But it’s enough to break Morgan’s heart

His lids close over glistening eyes, throat convulsing with another choppy, strained failure of a breath.

“Don’t – Derek, keep him awake and do _not_ move your hands,” Hotch orders.

Morgan takes a shuddery breath, immediately hit with guilt because _Spencer can’t breathe._

“Reid, come on now.” He’s keeping his eyes firmly trained on the kid’s face, trying to ignore the vast difference between the sheet white of his complexion and the varying dots of blood spread across his lips. “Spencer – I need you to open your eyes.”

Hotch snaps his head up when Morgan moves one hand, despite his second staying firmly packed against the persistently bleeding wound.

Derek grips Reid’s wrist, his tone a firm divergence from his gentle commands. “You have to look at me now. Stay awake for me, kid.”

It was manipulation at its finest. Morgan knew Reid was naturally agreeable, especially when it benefited someone he cared about.

Spencer liked to make other people happy, aimed to help everyone he could. He always did his best to keep his loved ones pleased. So really, telling the boy to open his eyes and look at him, to stay awake ‘for me,’ was simple exploitation. Pure and undeniable.

Morgan tries his best to shovel past the spark of relief when wet, hazel eyes blink up at him. They’re glazed over and unaware, but open and locked on his. “H – hey, there you go. Keep with us now.”

Hotch glances up from where he had been taking note of Spencer’s pulse. One of his own hands is pushed against the boy’s backside. His hand is stained, matching Morgan’s. There must be an exit wound.

“Reid,” their unit chief begins. He closes his mouth after a moment, meeting Morgan’s eyes and passing the thousands of unanswerable questions between them. Everything they could possibly say holds no bearing; no importance great enough to ask the younger man to speak with a failing organ.

_Does it hurt? Can you breathe? You know we’re trying our best? We love you. We care. You’re going to be okay._

Spencer’s eyelids flutter for a second time. Derek slips his free hand from the boy’s slim wrist and into his palm instead, lacing their fingers together.

“Squeeze if you can hear me, kid.”

A deteriorating grip, weak enough for Morgan to almost miss it.

“Okay, good – great.” Derek sighs, turning his head and watching the blood sliding between the fingers on his other hand before detaching himself more and swivelling back to his partner. “You – you’re doing great. Keep your eyes on me, okay? Yeah, you’re good.” His words were beginning to stumble into each other now, praises and questions all flooding together into a mush of worry and poorly concealed fright.

There was so much blood now. Soiling Hotch’s clothing, Morgan’s hands, absolutely drenching Reid, the floor. Everything.

The kid wasn’t even shaking anymore, his throat just bobbled every few moments as he sucked in less and less air each time he attempted it.

Morgan bared his teeth, trying to remove his own investment. If he could detach himself enough, he can focus on helping the kid. If he can separate himself from this horrible, awful, wrong situation… maybe he can prevent his own fear of losing his best friend.

Reid can no longer be his co-worker, his partner. He can’t be the gangly, doe-eyed kid that makes him grin even on the worst days of the job. Not the endearing, caffeinated, know-it-all who’s grown so much it feels like a lifetime since they first met. 

No, all Reid can be right now is _okay._ That’s all he needs to be.

Morgan looks downward, focuses on those unbelievably bright eyes that blink up at him like he hung the stars. “Hey,” he breathes. “Just hang in there a little more for me, alright?”

Spencer manages a closed-mouth smile, his colour-drained face contorting for a moment as he forces some semblance of contentment through what must be unimaginable pain.

“I promise, help is on the way.” Derek returns the smile. Sure, it might be slightly forced and transparent at the edges, but he can feel the kid’s body relaxing minutely beneath his promise. “It’s almost here, Pretty Boy. Eyes on me.”

_“M – mhm…”_ His stare has drifted past Derek’s own gaze now, and Spencer is watching the ceiling as if he’s seeing something previously unknown to him. The dazed smile dips into a state of delusion. Spencer blinks tiredly up at the world he’s watching which nobody else can see.

“Four minutes out,” Hotch says quietly.

Morgan can feel the police chief hovering between the three of them and the entrance to the precinct, ready to direct the EMTs when they arrive.

The weight of Spencer’s hand in his own is falling limp, and when he glances back to meet shining eyes with reassurance, he’s met with nothing but closed lids.

“What’d I say kid?” He chokes out, clearing his throat when he hears the rasp. “Thought I said eyes on me?”

“Reid? Reid!” Hotch’s grip tightens, and he swears under his breath, sending Morgan’s heartrate skyrocketing. “I need those medics – _now!_ ” He keeps one hand pressed against Reid’s back, reaching past Morgan and dropping the kid’s wrist in favour of tilting his head to the side to feel the stronger pulse. “Try keep his airway clear,” he instructs.

“Pulse?” Morgan asks, his voice rising an octave.

Hotch’s dark eyes dodge his as he turns back to apply harsher pressure over the wounds. Morgan’s gaze darts between Spencer’s unresponsive features and the taught expression clenched on Hotch’s face before speaking. “ _Don’t_. Don’t do that to me, man. You aren’t allowed to shut down on me like that,” he accuses.

“It’s there,” Hotch grits after a stiff silence. He looks up, making direct contact with Morgan. “But it’s weakening, a – and we can’t do anything more to fix it right now.”

As soon as the unit chief has said the words, Morgan knows exactly why he hadn’t wanted to say them in the first place. He immediately stiffens, although he has enough forethought to keep his hand cupped against Spencer’s chest which is _still bleeding_.

“I can hear sirens!” The police chief shouts, the sound murky and muffled by the slow gathering realisation that Spencer’s pulse is fading out.

Hotch sits back on his haunches, breathing heavily. Morgan stays stiff and unmoving aside from the twitch of his finger at the stillness in Reid’s wrist.

“Can’t feel it,” he mumbles. “No pulse but he – he’s still – there’s still blood from the wound.”

Hotch stays quiet. Morgan knows better. The team has shown up to crime scenes with bodies fresh enough to still actively bleed.

Blood sets at six hours, so of course a corpse would leak blood from a wound like this – a wound like Spencer’s.

“He’s fine,” Morgan utters. “Just – just get the medics in here,” he finishes, sounding unsure of himself. He leans back like Hotch, his hand slipping from Spencer’s chest.

“Damnit, Morgan.” Hotch rushes to press against the wound, taking note of where his agent’s hand is moving now that it’s unoccupied.

“You’re good, kid. He’s good.” He places two gentle fingers at the side of Spencer’s neck, searching for the pulse as his remaining fingers graze against the curve of the younger man’s jawline.

It’s odd to see someone so clean and organised poised so limply, void of all colour, save for the blood against his lips. Morgan was used to seeing much worse on the job. Dirt smeared; defence wound littered corpses were commonplace. It was unnerving to see Spencer so… natural – almost peaceful in a way. His lashes flush against his cheeks, brows at rest, not screwed up in thought. He could pass for asleep if it weren’t for the hole in his chest, or the look on Hotch’s face.

“You’re going to need to move back soon,” Hotch warns. Morgan can hear the sirens now, too. When he peers at the door, the police chief is gone, hopefully leading the EMTs.

In the back of his head he knows this should be of equal weight to the first time Spencer had stopped breathing. It might be the state of him now compared to then, which is stopping his mind from equating the two on the same level.

Spencer’s clean-shaven, well-dressed. Aside from the blood, if he stood up now and went back to work, nobody would be the wiser.

Back in that cabin, after the convulsions had stopped, he looked wrecked. As low-quality as the video feed had been, everyone had seen it. The saliva, the foam down his chin, the injury from Hankel’s blitz attack, the bruising, his unbuttoned, tie-less shirt. He had looked like a real corpse back then. Nothing like he does now.

“Morgan,” he hears distantly. There are clattering footsteps, a group of them growing closer. Hotch turns away from him, speaking to the collection of pounding feet. “I haven’t felt a pulse for the past two minutes – I think the bullet might’ve hit a lung; he was struggling to breathe before passing out.”

Morgan is still gently dragging his hand over the kid’s neck, waiting to feel that steady thrumming beneath his fingertips. Reid doesn’t respond to the touch, he doesn’t even shy away as the EMTs descend upon him. He is entirely and wholeheartedly unresponsive.

The EMTs are speaking to each other in terminology so thick with words only the young genius would understand. He’s already being swathed in gauze to staunch the blood flow, gloved hands shifting him, pawing at his clothing to gain better access. Hotch has stepped aside, and Morgan finds himself being tugged back onto his feet by the older man.

“Give them room.” Hotch’s tone is dejected. The two of them stand, silently transfixed on their own agent despite the quiet which has filled the precinct.

Morgan keeps his lips pressed in a firm line as he watches one of the EMT’s step back and set up a backboard.

“This exit wound is too close to the spine, we aren’t going to be able to risk much movement,” one of them says as he readies to help with the transfer. The man’s words, his mere suggestion has hundreds of uncontrolled thoughts bursting the gate in Morgan’s head.

He takes one wobbly step backwards, breathes in croakily and really thinks about what this could mean for the kid.

_If the bullet really did nick his spine, would he lose mobility? What if he can never walk again? Or sit up properly? He wouldn’t be content stuck in the office, he loved field work. Would he even be cleared to work if there were too many complications? Spencer would hate being on his own, cooped up in his apartment. If there’s spinal damage, if he ends up needing extra care… he doesn’t have anyone for that. Nobody but the team – oh god… the team._

“We – we have to call the others,” he manages.

“Pressure’s dropping,” someone yells below them. Hotch throws out a hand, keeping Morgan in place as the backboard is lifted. He can hear teeth grinding behind his arm, and feels the man’s weight leaning forward, ready to follow as soon as he’s in the clear.

There are two black bands wrapped over Spencer, keeping him securely in place. One runs along his upper chest, closer to his neck than anything, and another at his waistline. His ashen left-hand dangles limply over the edge of the board. The tips of his feet hangs over the back edge, his slacks riding up.

Morgan can make out a stripy, blue and faded yellow sock on one ankle, and a dark purple on the opposite. It was so undeniably _Spencer_ that it makes everything too real all over again. He sidesteps Hotch, who follows behind him without argument after catching a pair of keys from the captain. They both trail after the lingering medics who are speaking with each other hurriedly as they load Reid into the ambulance.

“Get a large bore I.V set up…”

“We need a needle aspiration –”

Morgan steps up behind the last EMT as she climbs into the van, already calling for more equipment as her colleagues begin strapping various tubing, wires and machines to his friend.

“Derek, we’re following behind in a cruiser,” Hotch says, his tone clipped. The last EMT turns, meeting Morgan’s eyes and breaking her medical focus to speak quickly with him.

“I’m very sorry but there isn’t room for anyone else in here –”

“H – he reacts to beta-lactams and won’t take narcotic painkillers,” he explains, stammering the information out worriedly. The woman nods, giving him a hard edge of confidence to grip onto, knowing Reid’s medical notes wouldn’t be taken lightly.

The door slams shut, and he scurries to slip into the passenger seat of Hotch’s borrowed police cruiser. The ambulance sirens flick on to match the lights as it pulls out.

“I know this isn’t protocol,” Hotch mutters before leaning forward to turn their vehicle sirens on alongside the van’s.

Despite himself, Morgan chokes out a stiff laugh. He rubs his hands, smearing congealed blood across his lap before fumbling with his phone.

The dial tone stretches out before the line is picked up.

“Morgan, what’s happened?”

Derek opens his mouth. Squeezes his eyes shut.

“I hear sirens, did you and Hotch get our unsub?”

He closes his mouth again, hating himself as his throat closes, crushing any words he might’ve formed long before they reach the air.

The phone is removed from his hand. He exhales shakily, watching the red lights ahead of their car blurring as his vision turns watery.

“David, there’s been an accident at the precinct.”

Morgan doesn’t have it in himself to be envious of the logical way his unit chief manages to lay everything out for Rossi. He simply focuses on the fuzzy redness of the van out their windscreen, tuning out the recounting of events he hopes he’ll never have to live through again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me feel warm inside.
> 
> @Svn-F1ower is my tumblr if you have questions, comments, suggestions.


	3. Falling Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I never know how to characterise Gideon because ofc he's a mentor/father-figure to Reid but also, he totally abandoned him and left a letter just like Reid's father did. I've read fics where Gideon has hella dad vibes and I'm like yeah! But then I read dark!Gideon fics or fics where he's just real bad and a smol part of me is like... this might just be the tea :0
> 
> Anyway, I digress.
> 
> Hopefully the section inspired by Sufjan Stevens' 'Visions of Gideon' isn't horrible :) and before anyone asks, yes. Yes, I have seen the movie the song was written for. An aesthetic piece of cinema.
> 
> \----
> 
> There's a super brief allusion to s2ep12 'Profiler, Profiled' but Buford's name isn't even mentioned, it's just referring to all the times Reid's ever seen Morgan upset.

It’s ironic, Spencer is blatantly aware. The team has a habit of guiding him away from the most danger-fuelled aspects of their job. Sure, there were times when they had no excuse and therefore no choice but to send him charging into an un-cleared location with his gun at the ready – always near the back of the pack, as usual.

And yet, for some ungodly reason, the little habit seems to have backfired massively. Which is why – despite the fact that he was essentially quarantined at the local station with only a map and cups of coffee to keep him company – he finds himself laid against the linoleum, surrounded in his own mess of blood.

Spencer swears if breathing weren’t such an effort, he’d laugh.

He has a faint belief that Morgan might chuckle as well, or at least poke fun at him for being such a danger magnet. Instead, though his vision is blurring and tilting through the black spots which crackle in and out of his sight, he can make out an unnatural gleam in the man’s eyes.

Regardless of how slow his mind seems to be computing things, he blearily realised the ‘gleam’ in his co-worker’s eyes seem to be _tears_.

And wasn’t that just out of character for the older agent?

Derek Morgan was singlehandedly the strongest man Spencer’s ever had the pleasure of meeting. He was the kind of man who had the strength to break down doors and to stay awake for almost forty-eight consecutive hours for a case only to ‘hit the clubs’ immediately afterwards because Penelope insisted on helping the team unwind. Morgan was also the type of person to understand that strength also meant placing masculinity aside. Whether it be for a victim of abuse in need of comfort on a case, or to let Prentiss and Garcia attempt to teach him how to braid.

All that strength, yet Spencer had never seen Derek Morgan cry.

Of course, he wasn’t oblivious, he knew Morgan had those kinds of emotions stored up. He just didn’t know who – or even if – they were shown to. He had a heavy inclination Gideon and Hotch had seen something close, back in Chicago, just prior to Buford’s arrest. But that was beside the point, because the three of them never said what happened in that back room of the youth centre.

The point was, Derek Morgan had something akin to tears in his eyes, and Reid knew they were meant for him. He didn’t want them to be, but there wasn’t really anything he could do to stop it.

Morgan isn’t even meeting his eyes anymore. Instead, Morgan watches a space of his torso which Spencer can only guess is the same place his pain receptors are screeching about.

He knows logically, with the look on Morgan’s typically stoic face, he should be scared. But he’s perfectly content to lay unmoving and watch as the light reflects in Morgan’s tear-glazed eyes.

“Hey,” someone breathes from above him. It takes longer than he’d like to admit before he registers that the movement of Derek’s lips mean it’s likely him that is murmuring. “Just hang in there a little more for me, alright?” A weight tightens against his palm, and Spencer smiles idly when he realises it’s the pressure of Derek’s hand entwined with his own.

Apparently, there’s two things Derek Morgan does now which Spencer has never seen him do before, well up and hold his hand. He thinks he likes this side of Morgan; it’s humanising and strangely comforting at a time like this. “I promise, help is on the way.” Spencer understands that his grip on consciousness is slipping when the first thing he thinks after Morgan’s words are, _why do we need help?_

Derek is returning his smile, but it’s twisted and gnarled in a way that makes Spencer think something must be very wrong. “It’s almost here, Pretty Boy.” _What’s almost here?_ “Eyes on me.” _Yes, your eyes are quite nice, Morgan._ He’d love to express that fact, because he’s always been oddly intrigued by the richness and depth of the man’s eyes, but only a soft sound manages to escape him.

“M – mhm…” He hums, struggling against the wash of grey seeping into his line of sight and slowly swallowing the view he has of Derek. Kind-hearted, altruistic Derek. Derek, who has been there for him since his first day in the field. Whose friendship has grown into something soft and bright that Spencer’s never truly had in his life before.

The remainder of his vision is darkening, but there’s a slice of whiteness sailing forward from where the ceiling used to be. Simultaneously, the grey static blurs the rest of the room and the light rears towards him until it’s the only thing he sees. He wants to flinch away from it, but his body isn’t listening to his brain and he can hardly feel himself through the numb sensation spreading through his veins.

_“What’d I say kid? Thought I said eyes on me?”_ A voice scolds gently. From which direction the noise came, Spencer has no clue. He knows the owner of the voice sounds familiar, but he doesn’t possess the energy to find out.

\----

_“Hey, Morgan?”_

_“Mm?”_

_“Uhm… Do you ever have dreams?”_

_“I’m sorry?”_

_“I guess, uh…_ nightmares _, would be a more accurate description.”_

\----

Reid wasn’t one for entrances, he just wasn’t the type. He’d enter the bullpen or the conference room the same each day, subtly, non-disruptive, almost like that of a shadow. Morgan understood that attention was one of the lowest kept priorities for the younger man.

His induction to the BAU wasn’t much different. Of course, the ripple effect a new agent – a twenty-two-year-old, in fact – had on the social environment of the office was out of his control. Gideon accompanied him on the rounds Hotch insisted upon, hovering just behind his shoulder as he was awkwardly introduced to everyone.

Looking back on that first day, Spencer had been uncharacteristically quiet, not forthcoming in conversations. It was painfully obvious how out of his depth he was at being thrust into the spotlight. He made up for it every day since, quietly slipping into his desk chair and beginning to work through his case files, waving meekly at every morning greeting and smiling as everybody finished trailing in.

So really, his entrance into the emergency room was almost too vicious in its contrast.

Morgan didn’t think he’d ever seen the wheels on a hospital gurney move faster than they had when Spencer was pushed in, already half covered in tubes and monitors. Nor has he seen such a seamless yet tumultuous patient handover. The ambulance staff had yelled about various vital signs, some of which were off the charts and others which were dropping into dangerous territory.

He almost would have preferred all the yelling from staff because the silence – not knowing – is undeniably worse. He’d stare at that colourless, motionless body on the gurney for a lifetime if it meant he could know what was happening to it – to him.

By the time Hotch has sorted out their vehicle and joined him in the waiting room, the look on his face implies he feels the same.

“Anything while I parked?” Aaron asks quietly, one plastic seat across from him.

“Don’t know,” he answers. “Couldn’t really understand what they were saying.” Aaron doesn’t respond but Morgan is fairly certain he can guess what he wanted to say.

Spencer would’ve known. He could pick apart medical jargon like it was a toddler’s storybook.

“I uh – it didn’t sound like they managed to fully resuscitate him on the drive over. Or at least… keep him resuscitated,” he added, watching his boss picking orange crusted blood from his cuticles.

“David’s on his way with JJ and Emily.” Morgan nods, looking away from the man, grateful for the change of subject. He can still feel the eyes of several other people in the waiting room three rows behind him. Whether it be from Spencer’s entrance, or the amount of blood on both his and Hotch’s clothing, he couldn’t care less.

Hotch is watching him, no doubt profiling him and his ability to cope. He has been staring at the floor for the past minute, meeting his eyes would be a good start. “You should wash up,” the older man suggests. “I need to call Penelope.”

On one hand, Derek doesn’t want to be around for that call, but he feels bad for Hotch. Telling Penelope things had fallen awry, and someone was hurt, while she’s stuck back in Quantico was always excruciating, especially if the Hankel case was anything to go by.

He would argue, offer to call her instead, but getting Spencer’s blood off his hands somehow sounds more appealing than having to divulge in his mental state with Penelope right now. Instead, he takes himself off to the washrooms and stares wearily as the cheap hospital soap runs the water a rusty, depleted shade of brown.

Morgan chances a single glimpse into the mirror and frowns when he’s met with a groggy looking caricature of himself. He couldn’t understand how it was fair that Spencer had resembled a cadaver from one of their crime scenes when all he looked like was a more sleep-deprived parody of himself.

He bites back a sigh and shakes his freshly cleaned hands, carrying himself back to the waiting room where Rossi, JJ and Prentiss now stand next to Hotch.

“She’s talking with Strauss now about flying out?” Prentiss is asking when Morgan manages to collapse back in his seat.

“She is, but from the sounds of things it’s only going to be authorised if we actually close the case,” Hotch says dejectedly.

“Of course, she’ll say that,” JJ jabs, taking the seat beside Morgan. Her posture relaxes, “how’re you holding up?”

He didn’t need to be consoled. He didn’t want the team pressing him like this, all it did was consolidate the fact that he was taking this the hardest. Morgan didn’t need an implication, that his relationship with the kid was different to the connection he formed with anyone else, to be held over his head. Especially not at a time like this.

In all honesty, he didn’t know _what_ their relationship was anymore, because he definitely didn’t look at the kid as a younger brother anymore. Not for years, he hadn’t.

“I’ll be alright,” he lies, tone thick with discomfort. Rather than focusing on JJ’s response, he tunes into the conversation Hotch is having with Rossi and Prentiss. It sounds as though they’ve managed to isolate four different workers who had a shift on the night of each abduction. 

“So, it’s just a case of searching any properties they own or have connections to, then?” Hotch is watching the four of them analytically, as they nod in answer to his question. He exchanges a silent conversation with his eyes, nodding once to Rossi before easing his shoulders.

“I’ll try and get the search warrants processed. Garcia can look into any links they have to other potential holding sites.” Prentiss is already pulling out her phone as she speaks. Rossi wordlessly shifts towards the parking lot.

“Hey, you okay helping with the search?” Emily asks, her voice gentler this time as she looks at JJ. Morgan is well aware of Prentiss’ ability to compartmentalise, and Rossi isn’t the type to sit around in a waiting room, soaking in his worry. He thinks it’s a good gesture they’re making, bringing JJ along. She was somebody who needed a distraction from the hospital if there was any chance of her focusing.

JJ gives a short nod in response, rising from her chair almost distractedly. Morgan thinks that if she’d been in the precinct when the shots went off, nothing short of Spencer himself would be getting her out of that chair.

“We’ll regroup in a few hours, just keep me updated,” Hotch says. “I’ll help organise a search if Garcia finds something worth looking into,” he promises. Again, he exchanges something silent with Rossi as the group parts ways.

Hotch takes a moment to watch the trio disperse before he turns his attention to Morgan. His lips are pressed into one firm line, forehead framed with various wrinkles of concern. “Derek,” he begins.

He shivers at the unconventional use of his first name.

“What happened?” Hotch presses, voice serious.

Morgan can’t help but raise two brows in surprise. He was expecting a curt discussion about his capability of coping with case work, not this. Hotch must recognise the alarm in his expression because he expands on his words hurriedly. “In the precinct, while I was in the parking lot,” he explains.

“I – he was… I – I don’t know,” he sighs. He wants to say _everything just happened so fast,_ but it’s a ludicrous statement, useless and well-used in their line of work. And as true as it may be, it wasn’t going to help them. “I didn’t see, I was already at the door when someone fired. I wasn’t even facing the room, Hotch.”

“And afterwards, when you turned?”

_Painfully wide doe-eyes, ones he’s never been able to differentiate as olive or hazel, breaking from his gaze and darting down to something blemishing the perfectly ironed dress shirt._

_A tuft of sandy brown hair sinking lower and lower in his field of vision as the delicate, slender frame he’s come to appreciate begins to crumple towards cold, harsh linoleum._

He hadn’t focused on much of anything else except the kid.

_Catch him before he falls. He might never get up again._

“I um –” he pauses, clears his throat. “I know there were at least two shots. One hit the vending machine by the doors, and the other…”

_Sailing clean through a vital organ, ripping past the spine, doing god-knows what damage as it went._

“… Yeah,” he finishes slowly, voice tapering off as Hotch processes the information.

_“St’p. Please… hurts – don’t – Morg’n.”_

_Blood, slick and warm as it squelches grotesquely beneath the pressure he’s exerting into the rapidly cooling hand that’s long since stopped squeezing back._

“Morgan.”

_They ended their first real argument like this. With Reid on the floor. One of his own hands resting at the boy’s shoulder blade, tightening minutely at the realisation that it was probably the third time Reid had been held at gunpoint this year alone._

_“Did you have to tackle us both?” The kid had asked, huffing out an exasperated breath. Of course I did, he had thought. He couldn’t have shot you if you were falling out of the line of fire._

_“You’re welcome, Reid.” He says instead._

“Morgan.”

_But this time when he falls, it’s much different. Because the gun has already gone off._

_Because this time, he can’t do anything to protect the kid._

“Morgan!”

He can’t help but jerk abruptly – it’s almost a flinch but tamed enough to not truly be one – at his superior’s clipped tone. “Morgan, we don’t need to do this right now.” And that’s when his brain catches up enough for him to realise this had been a cognitive interview.

“No, I – I uh, I know someone fired. The vending machine glass went everywhere. Spe – Reid, he went down. Then you were there,” he relays. Hotch shakes his head, lifting one hand to shut him back down.

The man parts his lips, ready to speak. He seems to be rolling a response around on his tongue before he finally forces it out.

“Look,” he sighs, genuine concern darting across his typically controlled expression. Morgan feels his stomach churn when he averts his eyes and inadvertently catches the blood still lingering on Hotch’s hands. “This is difficult for all of us, Morgan.”

_It shouldn’t be about us. It should be about Spencer._

Hotch shifts in his chair, making sure he has the attention he needs to finish speaking. “But I need you to understand that, as young as Reid is, and as much as we all try to shelter him, he is strong.” Morgan blinks wetly at the floor, staring at his work shoes without further comment. “He’s a tough kid, and one hell of a fighter.”

He wants to point out that Spencer’s demonstrated that fact on multiple occasions. But he shouldn’t have had to.

“I know,” Morgan finds himself saying instead.

\----

The jet has always been a safe space for them. It’s the time for discussions and quite often the last hourly stretch of upbeat chatter before they’re all thrown into the deep end of some new depressing case.

It’s also the space for quiet, idle relaxation as they make their way back to Quantico. There’s always been an atmosphere of satisfaction on the flight home. Sometimes it’s because they managed to prevent a sore ending which is common in their line of work, but often it’s just because the case is shut, and they find themselves that much closer to their own beds.

Spencer finds something incongruously comforting when majority of the team has lulled themselves into a gentle rest as he reads innocently in the corner. He thinks perhaps it’s so soothing because he’s in the presence of what is essentially his family, but he isn’t pressed under the weight of conversations and noise. Or maybe there’s something deeper there, some primal part of himself who’s content to just exist in the same space as the people he’s surrounded by.

Nevertheless, he’s glad to be here now.

Morgan looks better when he’s asleep with those large headphones on and not with that watery look in his eyes.

Spencer can’t seem to recall what had made the man so upset. Without the context of why, it’s hard to conjure something fathomable which could make Derek Morgan teary. But regardless, the man looks unblemished from misery where he’s resting now, eyes closed, chin to chest.

The rest of them look relaxed too. Prentiss is using the arm rest of the two-seater as a makeshift pillow. JJ’s got her knees pulled up under her chin, splayed in the spacious single seat. Rossi is sat like he’s awake, but his head lolls, one hand squashed between his cheek and the wall. Hotch looks ragged and worn, yet only half-asleep where he’s keeping his head upright, one elbow leant against the small table they typically exchange case files over.

They’re only ever like this after a particularly tumultuous case, or when the hours of wakefulness cross into what would normally be naptime.

He can’t remember solving the case, but perhaps he’s just tired too. Hopefully Garcia baked cookies for when they land, he’s exhausted.

The deep kind of exhausted that seeps into his bones and makes him feel weighted to the floor when he moves. Something is off kilter, not as it normally is. Like his sight has been dipped in fog until everything in from of him blurs.

_Is it a video?_

He just wants to crawl into the couch in front of Morgan and tuck himself away into the tiny travel pillow until the fatigue floats away. He feels wrong. His feet don’t feel floor beneath him.

“Up for a game, kid?”

He swivels, blinking away the filtered smudginess of his view and facing the two remaining single seaters with the even smaller table between them.

A pair of welcoming eyes meet his own. A familiar, warm smile.

“Gideon?” He asks softly, his heels rubbing against the carpeting of the jet as he crosses the space. His heart lurches. The man loosens his smile, gesturing to the board in front of him.

Spencer sinks into the single seat opposite him, somehow not feeling the fabric of the chair even as he repositions himself. It’s as if the space he’s in isn’t truly opaque.

The chess board is already halfway through a single player game, and Gideon begins to gently reposition each piece until the game has reset.

“I,” he chokes. “I’ve missed you,” he admits, watching the older man turn the board until the rows of white pieces sit in front of Spencer’s shaky fingers. Gideon has his eyes trained on him. “But – I um, I understand,” Spencer breathes. “Why you left, I mean.”

The man stays quiet, his expression open and honest even as he watches Spencer twitch. “And what you said in the letter, about solid footing, being confused.” He thinks he understands about being confused the most. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself either if he couldn’t ground himself in fact.

He’d never liked not knowing things.

Gideon leans forward, hands folded on the surface in front of the board between them.

“I meant what I said, about happy endings.”

“Did you find it again?” Spencer asks, unsure but forcing himself to speak through the haze in the air. “The belief in them?”

Gideon just looks at him woefully. Spencer tilts his head to the side, trying to profile the man and failing miserably.

“How are you feeling?” His mentor asks after a moment. He still has a look on his face – pity, or perhaps sympathy, Spencer thinks. Worry, concern.

He touches his own chest, then his cheek, and tries to grip the leather of the seat. He cannot feel himself, nor can he equate ever having felt like this before in his life.

_Visions of Gideon._

The ache of discomfort and exhaustion hasn’t faded as he’d hoped. He struggles to comprehend how it was possible to simultaneously feel nothing, yet everything at once.

“I’m okay,” he lies. Gideon only looks sadder at that. “Did you ask me to play?” Spencer continues, looking at the chess board. The white of his own pieces don’t look white. They seem to be something else, similar to the light he remembers before opening his eyes and finding himself in the jet. Gideon’s black pieces look like small masses of absence. Black wasn’t there, in fact he could only make out the absence of anything else.

“Do you like it here, Reid?” As always, Gideon’s question likely has an ulterior motive. The exhaustion makes it hard for Spencer to try and unpack it.

“Of course,” he answers without thought. Gideon’s expression is unreadable this time. “The team has been… they’ve been good to me, after your letter. I thought they might – I thought things might become difficult once you left,” he confesses with some reluctance.

_For the love,_

“Because I’m the reason you were fast-tracked to the team in the first place.” Gideon speaks as a statement, not a question, yet Spencer still nods.

“But they didn’t – nothing changed,” he says. “Hotch started correcting people, like you used to,” he smiles humorously. Gideon returns it, looking pleased. “Doctor, not agent,” he mumbles, craning his neck to see the unit chief behind him, still dozing against his own palm.

_For laughter,_

“I’m glad,” Gideon says with mirth. The man pauses for a moment, watching him carefully as Spencer turns his attention back away from the team. “If they’ve been good to you,” Gideon continues, more serious now. “Why do you like it here?”

_I flew up to your arms._

He blinks, cocking his head to the side again in confusion. The old-filter-like quality of his sight sways as he does, rattling the edges of his consciousness. The bone-deep tiredness is growing more uncomfortable now, harder to ignore – to power through.

“Um –” He’s cut off.

“Kid, I’m sorry. You know I can’t stay here even if you decide to?”

“What do you mean? Stay on the jet? Why do I like it here…? I don’t understand.” Spencer watches as Gideon frowns, tapping the black king on his side of the board. He’s growing steadily heavier with the weight of fatigue, barely comprehending what Gideon is saying.

“They’ve been good to you because they care,” the man explains, turning to face the rest of the team spread across the jet. Spencer follows his eyes, his own lingering far longer than Gideon’s.

_I have loved you for the last time._

“I know,” he murmurs. “I care too.” He thinks of everything they’ve all done for him, and the pull at his bones increases. He’s felt things he never thought he would because of the team.

Security. Affection. Cared for – cared about.

“Still want to play, then?” Gideon asks as Spencer manages to peel his eyes from the forms of the team, each in different states of rest.

He ponders for a moment, ready to say ‘sure’ as he always does on the flight back home. But then he recognises the tiredness, the heaviness of his limbs when he reaches out to adjust his pieces. He glances over to the couch beside Morgan and sighs.

_I have touched you for the last time._

“Maybe in a bit,” Spencer relents. “I think… I think I’ll just rest for now, though.”

Gideon nods, something warming his face that Spencer doesn’t think he can identify.

“Alright,” he says evenly.

The chair makes a sound when he stands, and still Spencer cannot feel the material, nor the floor as he walks towards the couch.

His small, white travel pillow is resting on the couch. He gratefully sinks into it, tucking the square of fluff over the arm of the couch which rests against the wall. He folds himself into the three-seater until he only takes up two cushions of it.

He listens to the gentle tapping as Gideon begins to move the chess pieces. The noise mingles with the muted, barely audible trickle of sound from Morgan’s headphones.

He smiles blearily. The fabric of his pillow rustles familiarly against his cheek when he burrows further into the embrace of the couch.

“I’m proud of you.” Gideon’s voice is pleasant, and the praise brings more weight to the dopey smile Spencer is sure the man can see on his face from across the jet.

The stuffing in the couch cushions must be soaking up his exhaustion because when he’s found the most comfortable position, chin nudged into his pillow, he can finally close his eyes and rest like the rest of the team managed to.

Sounds of the chess board follow him into his dreams.

_Visions of Gideon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay but the photos of the team napping on the jet give me LIFE.


	4. State of Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Morgan thinks he was too young.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took almost an entire month to write, and it's a pretty mediocre outcome - and that's on writers block!
> 
> I was scrolling through tumblr under #moreid and someone with one damn sexy profile pic said "if there is a god out there they will update Visions of Gideon soon p l s" so yeah. The tears of appreciation were real <3 and this chapter was primarily written because of that encouragement. I uwu you : )

Sometimes, Morgan thinks he was too young.

_For what?_

_For everything._

He had been swanned around the office – introduced as a prodigy – at only three months past his twenty-second birthday.

The thing is, Morgan would have argued, would have pegged the kid as another co-worker who’d likely last no more than a month on the job. The boy looked as much, with his precarious stature and eyes too fresh for field work and dead bodies. He had flailed his way past all the qualifications, tucked beneath Gideon’s wing. Instead, Morgan found himself as enamoured with the kid as everyone else.

And eventually he slid into place, out of the blue statistics and affinity for caffeine alike.

Soon enough, Morgan was as protective of the young doctor as the rest of the team. He couldn’t count the amount of prejudice he’d squashed from others on the kid’s benefit, it had simply become habit. “ _Doctor_ Reid,” he’d correct, barely paying attention. So would the rest of the team, it wasn’t hard to do.

And for all the things they’d seen, all the deaths they couldn’t prevent, Spencer was still here. As bright and plentiful as his first day. He sailed past his twenty-third, fourth, fifth birthday, still sitting among them even with all the things permanently stamped and stored in his eidetic memory.

Still, Morgan couldn’t help but believe the kid was too young for it all.

Nothing really asserts this belief like where he sits now. In an emergency waiting room – feet bouncing against cold linoleum, eyes trailing after every nurse and doctor – anticipating the worst.

“Do you ever regret it?” He says eventually.

“What?” Hotch rubs the space between his eyes, looking too worn for a conversation like this.

“Not pushing back on his application…” Morgan continues regardless. “Trusting Gideon, despite the kid’s age?” He has nothing against Gideon, he just wonders if the shine that comes with a new agent as beneficial as Spencer had overridden everything else.

Hotch sighs heavily, pressing the heel of his palms against his eyes. There’s a stretch of silence in which Morgan thinks his superior may never answer.

“I won’t lie,” Hotch begins. “Sometimes I forget – overlook – how… young he was when he joined,” he pauses, looking up towards the empty hallway. “How young he _still_ is.” His fingers drum against the harsh plastic of the armrest, hardly watching Morgan’s reaction to his words. “I hated that I didn’t argue for Jason to give him a few more years before applying, during – during the Hankel case.” 

Morgan thinks they all directed their hatred towards something during that case. “I just – on that,” For a brief moment, Hotch sounds as though he were about to actually talk about those horrible forty-eight hours.

They never do.

Nor do they speak of the aftermath. Of the hollow, carefully sunken skin and twitchy fingers marking addiction.

Morgan straightens in his seat, paying closer attention as Hotch struggles to begin his next sentence. “It doesn’t really matter,” the man says curtly, readjusting himself. “For all the times I’ve doubted myself because of what he’s been through, there’s been more than enough of the opposite.” He avoids Morgan’s eyes, deliberately watching workers idle past them, speaking to others in the waiting room. “There’ve been so many times he’s done things that nobody else could’ve, situations he’s been a part of that wouldn’t have felt the same without him.”

“As much as he’s been through, he means too much, I get it.” It wasn’t the answer he had wanted, nor expected. He needed someone to justify – to agree with him. 

There were things they could have done to prevent this.

“He’s been put through the ringer, but he’s part of this team and no one else could fill his place.” Hotch is quiet for a moment longer before adding, “and I couldn’t ever regret that.”

Because of course he wouldn’t – none of them could ever regret allowing the small space that Reid tucked himself into to be filled.

“I uh – sometimes I think he’d be a lot better off if we’d just let him do his own thing,” he admits. They treat him as if he were as unequipped as Penelope to be seeing the things they saw, doing the things they did. Reality is, Spencer was better prepared for the horrors of the job than most of them.

“You think I shield him too much.” Hotch isn’t asking a question, Morgan knows.

“I think there was probably a reason Gideon fought so hard for him,” he suggests. Hotch gives a short nod at his words, closing the discussion.

He almost wishes the others were here, or at least Penelope. The silence is giving him a headache. 

He doesn’t want to sit quietly in a hospital waiting room, alone with his thoughts running rampant.

He doesn’t want to see Spencer staring at the ceiling like he’s already dead.

Doesn’t want to feel the phantom sensation of his hand going still, growing colder by the second, or remember every single time the kid has been put in a situation nobody should ever be in. Pistol whipped, beaten, threatened, held at gunpoint at _least_ five times a year since joining the team. Caught in explosions, taken hostage, drugged, hurt.

The list stretches on so far that Morgan finds himself beginning to grow nauseous.

Things are never blaringly evident until he’s stacking them up next to each other, and suddenly he can comprehend how unfair the world seems to be.

“Morgan,” Hotch says abruptly. He looks up, taking a moment to register the buzzing at his thigh. “Phone,” his boss mouths, watching as he fumbles to slip the device from his front pocket.

“Morgan,” he answers stiffly, mimicking Hotch’s tone. The number calling hadn’t been saved to his contacts; he has a slight suspicion Garcia might be ringing him from a new number.

“Hi, I’m calling from Sagewest Healthcare, am I speaking with Derek Morgan?”

He blinks, turns to make eye contact with Hotch before swivelling to find a poster on the wall with the hospital’s name as confirmation.

“I – yeah – yes. Yes, this is Derek Morgan.” Hotch is giving him a sideways look, his stare burning a hole into the side of his head as he ignores the man in favour of listening to the woman on the other end of the line.

“You’re listed as emergency contact and healthcare proxy for mister –”

“Doctor Spencer Reid. Yes, I know,” he lifts a hand, wordlessly placating Hotch whose curious look turns rapidly into a glare when the kid’s name is mentioned. “I uh – I’m one of the agents who brought him in.”

There’s a crinkle on the other end of the line, and Morgan surges forward to fill the silence. “I’m in the waiting room now.” A small part of him fears the worst, but a more practical portion knows the staff from the operating room would have informed him of anything themselves.

“Right,” the woman says. “I was calling to inform you of his arrival. I’ll have someone out to speak with you when we’re given any updates.” Morgan’s throat constricts with shrivelled despondency.

“You don’t have an update now?” There’s a breath before the woman continues.

“He will likely remain in surgery for the time being, that’s all the information I have unfortunately.” The woman sounds apologetic, and Morgan parts with a depleted thanks, wishing he had been left with more information than he started.

He stays motionless for several long, unbroken beats.

“Reid asked me to be his emergency contact,” he answers without ever really needing Hotch to ask.

“I was wondering when he’d get around to that,” the man replies. Morgan isn’t surprised, he assumed their boss would have been aware of the months that role must have been left blank in Spencer’s records.

It wasn’t like the kid had anyone to fill the space after Gideon left. Not with his mother back in Vegas, certainly not with the lack of confidence he had in his connection to the team in those days. It’s distressing to think about – to know the younger man hadn’t felt secure enough to seek out someone who could support him in the worst of times.

_And these are the worst of times, aren’t they?_

“You alright?” Hotch’s voice is low, tone kept deliberately non-abrasive.

Morgan laughs at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I’m great. Just fantastic, Aaron,” he says spitefully. “Why do you ask? Everything’s just _fine_ , isn’t it?” His voice is as acrid as the worry pinching at his every exhale.

He’ll find the energy to apologise for it later.

\----

Morgan has been staring at the dusty, wall-mounted clock for the past half hour. If his assumptions are correct, the both of them have been in this waiting room just shy of two hours.

He’s watched various patients come in and out without hassle, yet his legs are growing numb from the hard, plastic chair he hasn’t moved from.

There’s so much noise he’s been trying to decipher that he barely registers the vibrations from Hotch’s phone.

“Rossi. Talk to me,” Hotch greets, rising from his seat and crossing the room to shake the numbness. Morgan stays in place, ignoring the phone call. He’s never been this indifferent towards the outcome of an active case, but he isn’t about to extend the effort of focusing his worries on anything other than his teammate.

Hotch looks intent where he’s stood to the side of the room, nodding into his cell phone as if Rossi is divulging information more important than their co-worker’s life. “Yeah, no it’s alright. I’ll get in contact with the captain and sort out the warrant.” Although Morgan supposes Hotch could be jumping on the opportunity to focus on anything other than the colour of the waiting room tiles, sitting in quiet distress, festering in their own worry and guilt.

He’s already reverted to the distraction technique, albeit one which isn’t helping his nerves. Morgan’s been pawing through almost every pamphlet available. He pauses to glance towards his boss when the man observes him tactlessly before continuing his conversation with Rossi. “No. No, we – we haven’t heard anything yet.” Hotch’s voice tapers off and he turns so his back faces Morgan. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t, David.”

Morgan pretends he doesn’t know the conversation is more than likely about him and wishes the time would go faster.

\----

Spencer hadn’t liked him in the beginning.

Hadn’t _trusted_ him. The kid’s discomfort had been painfully evident.

He was out of his depth regardless but being thrown into a bullpen and forced to converse with the type of person who’d likely tormented him throughout childhood was another level of distress.

Forcing himself to think from an outsider perspective helped Morgan to understand why his personality and demeanour might’ve made Spencer more than hesitant to relax around him. 

After the case in West Bune, Texas – after the hushed conversation the two of them had shared about flagpoles and haunting memories – Morgan can comprehend why it took so long for Spencer to stop shuffling in discomfort as they were first introduced. Why the kid used to jolt at his every unannounced entrance and stiffen up when he’d brush past him on the way to the break room.

Morgan had no doubt that the goalpost incident Spencer had described was likely one of many others. It was why he had never held the distrust against the boy, because of course his well-built stature and flippant exterior had resembled that of a jock – the kind of personality Spencer had been made to endure since high-school.

_“This is agent Derek Morgan. He specialises in criminal obsession and transferred from Chicago’s bomb squad.” He had smiled unthreateningly – politely – when met with the lanky frame of someone who looked far out of his depth._

_“Doctor Spencer Reid,” the kid introduced. He didn’t need to mention being fresh out of the academy, it was obvious enough for Morgan to guess from appearance alone._

_There was a breadth of quiet in which both Hotch and Gideon had lingered like overbearing parents before the new agent spoke. “It’s interesting, criminal obsession is often closely linked to anankastic personality disorder, despite the fact that almost eighty-four percent of obsessive serial killers only display a minimal number of diagnosable traits listed by the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.”_

_Morgan blinked, casting a wary eye in Hotch’s direction. The kid had pushed out a mouthful of information with one breath, all the while rocking on the back of his heels like a distractible teenager. “Sorry, I uh – I wrote a report on spree killers and their relation to personality disorders,” the doctor fidgeted as he spoke, looking increasingly vexed as Morgan composed himself enough to answer._

_“Doctor…” Morgan repeated eventually. “PhD in psychology then, I assume?”_

_Gideon’s lip twitched upwards in amusement from the corner of Morgan’s eye._

If it had been anyone other than Reid, Morgan thinks he wouldn’t have cared – would have simply marked them down as a low-grade narcissist with a bigger brain than they were worth.

But it was Reid.

A new agent whose curiosity and dedication to helping minimise the horrors in the world didn’t fade out within the first few months like the rest of them. There was a peculiar innocence to him, especially in their line of work. He had the attitude of an over-eager intern but made contributions larger than the rest of them.

Which was probably why Morgan hadn’t taken the loss and swallowed his pride. He fought tooth and nail to make sure the kid loosened up around him. It took time – a lot of it – and what he guessed were gentle prods in the right direction from Gideon.

_“Books,” Gideon had suggested stiffly, recognising the fact that Morgan watched Garcia’s endless exchange of home-baking and JJ’s litany of birthday hugs with an unreadable concentration. “You can never go wrong if you’re getting him a book.”_

Sometimes he couldn’t place where he was on the track to proper friendship. The flinching and guarded eyes had died down, but he struggled to feel that the kid ever truly relaxed around him.

But then Spencer asked him about the nightmares.

He thought it had been a signal that they were moving in the right direction – the right direction being comfortable acquaintances, that is, – but he wasn’t entirely confident that Reid should be discussing something so important with someone he hadn’t developed much trust in. Morgan suspected the kid seeking him out to talk to was only because he specifically didn’t want to speak with someone who knew him well enough to worry about the issue seriously.

_“Reid, I’m not sure if I’m the right person for you to talk to about this,”_ he had admitted honestly.

_“Why not?”_

_“It’s just – ah…”_ Truth be told, he cared about the kid enough that he wanted someone who could actually help him to get involved. _“Did you ask Gideon about it?”_

_“No,”_ the response was too fast, and again, too guarded.

Morgan thinks that Reid hadn’t wanted to worry anyone, so speaking with him was a way to divert the concern he would no doubt receive from his superiors.

_“You should.”_ Reid blinked this time, one finger running around the edge of his cup as he looked up in vague interest at the care in Morgan’s tone.

If he had been sought out because Reid hadn’t expected concern from him, Morgan would make damn sure the kid got some.

He had thought speaking with Hotch was the right option – was a way to prove that he did care about what the genius was struggling through. But when Reid confronted him later, with anything but gratefulness in his tone, he wasn’t so sure.

_“Reid, that’s something they need to know about.”_

_“What do you mean ‘they?’”_

_“Hotch and Gideon.”_ Reid had taken an incredulous step backwards, hands still fisted in the pockets of his jacket. His eyes rolled up to the sky before sailing back down to settle on Morgan’s with distaste.

_“You told Gideon too?”_ He bit.

And really, that’s when Morgan understood. This was about reputation, then. The kid’s insistent need to prove himself.

He always did have a definite attachment to Gideon, something warm and familial in his life, a gleam in his eyes following praise. 

Without meaning to profile him, Morgan had already assumed the unusual bond was a filler-type replacement for an aspect of childhood the poor kid had been deprived of. It wasn’t an unrecognisable trait; he had displayed it once before too – although he doubted Gideon would ever abuse that trust with Spencer – before Morgan had learned the hard way that not every father-figure was loving. He understood why Reid came to him first, and why he chose to avoid the issue with anyone else on the team.

Soon though, the two of them had devolved into an argument which Morgan was prepared to walk away from despite his concern for the kid.

_“I – I confided in you,”_ Spencer pointed out, fairly bitterly. _“This is – you know this is exactly what I get when I trust someone,”_ he spat. _“It gets thrown back in my face.”_ The kid had glowered at him like some sort of unsub – accusatory and hollow all in one glance – but there was sorrow present too. Some form of untapped self-consciousness he had no doubt gathered with him along the route of childhood.

Morgan hadn’t intended on unearthing the kid’s insecurities, nor his fascination with proving himself worthy of the job he was too young for.

But then again, it brought them closer in the end.

Their eyes had met from across the jet after Spencer finished his discussion with Gideon, the barest of smiles gracing his features.

\----

“Open lung surgery is only supposed to take between two and six hours,” Hotch points out.

The two of them have settled in for the long haul, reclined stiffly in the hard chairs beneath them.

“We haven’t crossed the six-hour threshold,” Hotch says encouragingly. He’s trying to be positive, but the trait doesn’t work well on him.

“But a tube thoracostomy shouldn’t go for longer than thirty minutes,” Morgan presses. “They shouldn’t have to be doing open lung surgery.” Hotch presses his lips in a line, although the corners of his mouth don’t upturn as Spencer’s always do when he hasn’t fully committed to a smile. “Sorry,” he breathes in a weak attempt to appease his superior.

Hotch remains silent for another drawn, harsh beat.

“You’re his medical proxy, then?” Hotch asks curiously, not looking up from the medical handouts the two had been reading to pass time. Morgan juts his chin forward in a half-nod affirmative. “When did he –”

“September,” Morgan answers quickly. “Couple months after Gideon left.” Hotch nods as though he expected the period of time to line up as so. “He didn’t bring me the forms until early October.”

Like some twisted birthday gift.

_Surprise! I’ll be in charge of your life if you’re ever hurt in the field and unable to communicate for yourself._

Morgan had a small suspicion the kid waited so long because he still clung to the glimmer of hope that Gideon would return.

“When the doctors finish up, they’ll want to speak with you,” Hotch points out. Morgan sighs, eyes still on the empty hallway ahead of them. “Depending on his condition,” Hotch says wearily, “I’ll need to visit the station to talk with the captain.”

“To work out what happened,” Morgan guessed.

“Rossi spoke with him briefly at the precinct before they went to search different properties,” Hotch admits. Morgan looks up from the hallway, glancing to the side at his superior whose gaze is locked on the floor. “They’ve detained the man who opened fire, he’s being kept in an interrogation room until one of us is ready to get a confession.”

A muscle in the side of Morgan’s jaw throbbed. Hotch watched the man’s nails dig into the armrest of the chair.

“It wasn’t an accident, then,” he grits.

“No. It doesn’t seem that way.”

“I just assumed…” Morgan squeezed his eyes shut and let out a grating breath. “Who the hell is stupid enough to open fire in a precinct, surrounded by cops and FBI agents?”

Hotch paused, his suit jacket rustling as he eventually lifted one shoulder in lack of knowledge. He opted to keep quiet, knowing that having no answer would only upset the slightly younger agent more.

“Mr. Morgan?” A woman in clean scrubs asked the remainder of the waiting room – because apparently in Riverton, not many people require the emergency room past twelve in the afternoon.

Hotch cannot recall ever having seen a grown man jolt upright so aggressively until Morgan reacted to the nurse standing before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie I pulled Reid's statistic out of my ass - creative liberties if you will.
> 
> I have almost two thousand words worth of CM fic ideas on my hard drive somewhere and I wanna know if I should even WRITE THEM. Pls someone give me a sign!


	5. Wake-Up Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He’s alright, Derek.”
> 
> “I know that,” Morgan responds, but the words ring false in his mouth. He thinks Hotch can feel they do too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is _almost_ double the normal chapter size ;)
> 
> I tried my best with the research but none of this is guaranteed to be accurate. 1/3 is internet information based, 1/3 on the one surgery I've had, and the remainder is educated guessing. So yeah, not the best place to take medical information from...
> 
> @svn-f1ower-cm is my tumblr <3
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/svn-f1ower-cm

Morgan was up out of the horrible plastic chair in seconds. His back was ramrod straight; knees locked despite the hours he had been too stubborn to move from the waiting room in fear of missing a call or update.

“That’s me,” he asserts. Hotch winces when Morgan’s shoes squeak against the linoleum flooring as he stops abruptly, already shoving one hand deep in his pocket to retrieve identification. “Agent Derek Morgan.” The authority – he hopes – will secure him some leeway within typical hospital procedures, for Reid’s benefit.

The nurse looks over the badge Morgan produces, eyes catching on the noticeable FBI logo before smiling placatingly.

Hotch stands from his own chair, carefully crossing the space until he is stood at his agent’s side. “This is my superior, agent Hotchner,” Morgan promptly introduces. 

Hotch has to commend him on the incredible amount of restraint he’s showing, especially considering how long he was left in the waiting room after having watched one of his closest teammates bleeding out. Although his words are rushed, fingers gripping the leather edge of his badge tighter than necessary, Morgan seems to hold his patient gaze on the nurse evenly. Like he would a witness, or a victim during a case.

“Well, agent Morgan, I’m Brenda and I work as an ER nurse. I’m in control of emergency care and discharge.” She pauses, assessing the speed at which Morgan seems to be processing her information.

He seems to pick up on the calculated look too.

“I’m Reid’s medical proxy,” he confirms, tactfully pressing himself into work mode – _Reid_ , not Spencer, _not yet_ – as he waits for the inevitable information that is sure to come. “I was told someone would be sent out with an update. Is that…?” He trails off, fully prepared to internalise an outburst if news is not what this nurse is here to provide.

“Yes, absolutely,” the nurse answers. “I’ll just bring you down to registration staff who need some information from you,” she gestures to the hallway. “He’s finished surgery. Nonopioid anaesthetics were used, so there is a decreased risk in post-operative difficulties.”

Hotch is nodding his head slowly as he takes in the information, his shoes louder along the hallway floors than Morgan’s. He is more than reassured the doctors didn’t use the typical anaesthetic to put the kid under. Hotch himself can remember spending several nauseous hours in discomfort as his body ridded itself of the drug post-surgery, and he is sure the exertion of being sick would be nothing but trouble for a patient who had likely undergone some form of invasive lung procedure.

“Thank you,” Morgan interjects when he realises the nurse is ready to continue speaking as the two follow her direction through the building. He couldn’t put into words how he would feel as Reid’s proxy if the kid were to wake up and find he’d been given opioids. The woman accepts the gratification, facing forward again as she speaks. Morgan struggles to scrub away the memories of the weeks Reid had spent downcast and snappy with everyone in the wake of the Hankel case.

“The decision was made to keep him on a ventilator temporarily; however, it is pressure support which is meant to assist his own efforts rather than to breathe for him.”

“So, he can breathe, then?” Morgan implores, yanking himself out of the worrying spiral. The nurse affirms the question and the two agents visibly relax at the information. The woman – Brenda, she had said – ushered him into an office and allowed Hotch to follow once Morgan gives a look of approval.

“He can breathe, yes,” she confirms more decisively as the door is pulled shut behind them. “However, he will need to stay intubated until the doctor has observed a CT scan and is confident there won’t be further complications.” Morgan pulls his upper lip through his teeth and sighs in relief, sharing a glance with Hotch.

Being able to communicate wordlessly and yet effectively with everyone in the team is one of the perks of their work, especially in particularly delicate situations like this. Hotch can tell Morgan has been put at ease, but there is a lingering itch in his eyes that indicates he needs to see for himself before he truly relaxes.

And sure enough, Morgan pipes up.

“When can I – we… When can we see him?”

The ER nurse who provided the two of them with the confirmation that the younger agent was okay – was _alive_ – glances up from where she has been typing something onto a desktop computer screen. A second woman, registration Hotch assumes, is shuffling papers together that Morgan will no doubt spend half an hour pawing through.

“Well,” she starts, straightening up with a moderating look in her eyes. “He’s getting a CT scan now and will likely be in the recovery room until he wakes back up.” Morgan blinks, looking as though he had silently prepared himself for disappointment. “So, after the paperwork is filled out and we have a better understanding of the circumstances in which the injury occurred,” the registration woman glances at the gun on Morgan’s hip tellingly. “I’d say within the next hour or so.”

Hotch has no doubt that if there was a longer wait time Morgan would have flashed his badge once more and deemed himself a precautionary twenty-four-seven bedside guard. But having a rough time to play to, Morgan’s posture sags even further as the concerned look around his eyes softens. The younger agent grins before composing himself with another nod and taking the proffered pen as the ER nurse gives her goodbyes and passes back into the hallway.

Hotch finds himself sat back in a chair – it’s cushioned this time – as he listens to Morgan mumbling various words from the stack of papers in his lap to himself.

“I don’t think he’s ever told us his middle name,” Morgan points out. The pen he holds is hovering over the empty space asking for any additional given names.

“Walter,” Hotch answers impassively. He ignores Morgan’s pointed incredulous side-look in favour of contacting Rossi.

David seems to be taking things into control, helping Emily keep JJ focused on the case and postponing the inevitable crushing guilt of seeing the kid hurt – again. He knows the largest reason the team seems to be holding it together in the field is because they understand once the case is finished, nothing can stop them from storming the hospital and seeing for themselves that Spencer will be alright.

“Has he… mmm – no? _Shit_ , never mind, leave it blank.” Morgan grumbles, simple background noise to Hotch. He blinks towards the paper before immediately averting his gaze back to the message exchange on his phone when Morgan’s pen pauses beside a question pertaining to the patient’s… extracurricular intimacy, and whether or not it could be considered ‘active’ in the weeks or months leading up to the unforeseen hospital stay.

Despite himself, Hotch nips at the inside of his cheek to keep the amusement from his face. Morgan might be secure enough to portray a self-assured ladies’ man on any other evening, but when it came to the kid, he was out of his depth. It seemed to be a part of his personality to flirt, and on the few occasions Spencer had clipped back with his own half insinuating comment, Derek was rendered a stuttering, unbalanced – but impressed – mess.

“Prentiss thinks they’re closing in on our unsub,” Hotch inserts over the somewhat rushed sounds of pen on paper.

“What’s the property like?” Morgan asks with half his usual affinity for interest in closing a case.

“West end of town, close to the rural areas but not overly deserted.” Hotch pauses, sending off a few more messages with Rossi before he speaks again. “They seem to have enough guys from the station willing to help with a search, especially now that the warrant is processed.”

“So, you’ll be here then?” Morgan sounds almost grateful, and while Hotch feels the slowly growing remorse, the captain and himself need to sort out their man in the interrogation room sooner rather than later.

“We’ll go in and hopefully speak with his doctor,” Hotch plans aloud. “But once we’ve got our guy I’ll be needed back at the precinct.” Morgan nods plainly, not looking surprised.

“Garcia will hopefully arrive sometime before it gets too dark,” he says half-heartedly. 

Morgan is on the final sheet now, twiddling the pen cap between each finger as he lists addresses and contact numbers by memory. He continually glances between the papers, the woman at the desk, and the doorway until he finishes the final question.

He sifts through them a final time, writing a ‘NA’ in each box he either didn’t have the information to answer, or didn’t apply to Spencer. He walks the booklet back to the woman sitting at her desk, returning her kind smile and waiting uncomplainingly as she got in contact with other staff to confirm the kid had been returned to recovery from the CT scan and could have visitors.

Hotch listens from his seat as Morgan is given the run-down on bedside etiquette and hospital regulations. No smoking, restricted call times for cell phones within the patient’s room, a maximum of two visitors at once for at least the first forty-eight hours of recovery. The woman also breached the topic of Spencer’s obvious overnight stay, and Morgan immediately perked up.

“I’m happy to stay with him overnight.” He glances towards Hotch, a wordless request for permission to do as such.

“I understand you often discourage visitors staying overnight,” Hotch starts. “Especially those without a congenial or blood relation to the patient. My agent here is well-equipped and is willing to do everything he can to support the patient.” The woman smiled, clearly understanding. Hotch assumed the lenience they received was due in part to the FBI badges they held.

“I’m sure the doctor will speak with you about what will be best,” the woman replies. There is an expression in her eyes that suggests she holds high hopes for them.

They are directed back into a hallway where a third nurse brings them further into the hospital. Morgan follows close behind her, his fists intermittently clenching and releasing at his sides.

They pause outside of a dark blue door with a vertical glass pane, and Hotch can see as Morgan cranes his neck even as the nurse addresses him.

“Now, the doctor will come to speak with you about his condition as soon as he is free. There’s a call button to the left-hand side of the bed and water from the hall when you or the patient need it.” She smiles at Hotch and gives an expression of understanding when Morgan thanks her gratefully.

The nurse leaves them outside the door. Morgan turns to cast an unsure glimpse towards Hotch as he reaches out for the door handle and pulls it downwards.

\----

Derek didn’t know what he expected from the recovery area. There was some part of himself that believed as anarchic the journey from precinct to emergency room had been, this quiet area would reflect that.

It was nothing of the sort. It was a rather open space, and although there were multiple beds against the walls, almost all of them were empty. Considering how small of a town this was and how often people actually needed invasive surgery, it wasn’t much of a shock for him. He assumed majority of the population who needed procedures and operations would outsource specialised doctors in the larger surrounding towns. 

He surveyed the area, still wringing his hands uncomfortably as he followed the line of beds until he could see Reid. _Spencer_.

The head of the bed was at a comfortable angle, keeping the kid propped up but not overly so. He was attached to a nasal cannula and an IV, but no ventilator. There were oxygen, heart and breathing monitors perched on a surface beside him, all of which displayed what both him and Hotch recognised as healthy levels.

Hotch shifted at his side, spurring Morgan into movement. Approaching the bed, he noted the lack of colour in the kid’s cheeks but took it with a grain of salt when he remembered how he had practically blended into the stark white stretcher on his way into the operating room.

There was another plastic chair beside the bed which Morgan thankfully sunk into while Hotch dragged his own over from one of the many empty beds.

Both of Spencer’s arms were resting atop the sheets, and when Derek leaned forward to rest his chin against his balled fists, he could watch the shallow rise and fall of the kid’s chest.

In the nicest way possible, the hospital gown did not suit him. The soft blue stood out against his light skin tone and only served to exaggerate the perpetual bags beneath his eyes. It was strange enough seeing Spencer outside of a work environment on any normal day, especially while he was swaddled in a hoodie and sweats, comfortably lazing around in his apartment. But this – seeing him in hospital clothing – it was disconcerting to say the least.

It reminded him too much of how Spencer had looked on the floor of the precinct. _So… natural, almost peaceful in a way. Lashes flush against his cheeks, brows at rest, not screwed up in thought. Passing as asleep if it weren’t for the hole in his chest._

But at least this time he _was_ asleep – albeit a drug induced one, but sleep all the same – as opposed to bleeding out and suffocating.

Aside from the minimal colour in his skin and the emphasis on his so obviously depleted condition, nothing was amiss. The bandaging that no doubt covered his midsection and chest was hidden by the lightweight sheets draped across his body and tucked beneath his arms.

The only issue cropping up for Morgan upon seeing the kid was how excruciatingly _young_ he looked. He almost resembled the fresh-faced juvenile he was on his first day. The only difference seemed to be his hair. Where once it would have been obsessively tucked behind both ears, never passing chin-length, his hair now splays halfway across his forehead. It reaches the hollow of his throat, at the perfect midpoint between the last time he cut it all off and the next time he will repeat the change. One side is brushed back behind his ear as usual, yet the other is spilling outwards, an inch away from covering his eye.

Hotch has pressed his clasped fists beneath his chin and leaned forwards in his chair opposite Morgan.

“Looks better than before,” the unit chief points out mildly. Morgan is ambiguously surprised to note the gloomy tone in Hotch’s voice, like he’s struggling to keep it steady.

Of course, all of them were struggling with the prospect of how close they had been to losing Reid, but Morgan had not stopped to consider how much harder it would have been for Hotch to see. All of them would have – and did – endure the weight of guilt, but it was part of Hotch’s job description to keep each member of the team safe and healthy.

Morgan held a certain responsibility too, but it was a self-gifted onus. He had always wanted a brother, and somehow, along the way he had forgone the hope for one and instead decided the kid held a larger and… unique importance to him. So, really, it was no surprise both himself and Hotch carried the brunt of Spencer’s safety.

Morgan inhales, gently places his guilt aside and forces himself to reply to Hotch.

“We uh – we’re not setting the bar very high then, are we?”

Hotch laughs, but it is twisted and breathy in a sense that makes Morgan believe his boss is forcing it out too.

He scoots his chair closer to the bed until his knees knock against the frame. He is only inches away from being able to reach out and feel what he hopes is a strong, heady pulse beneath pale skin and slender wrists.

He doesn’t entirely know what possesses him to reach out – especially with his boss seated within perfect viewing distance – but he does anyway. He stretches out one hand that he so often uses for other things – squeezing a trigger, wielding a tool to tear out yet another wall from his newest renovation project – and pushes back a strand of hair curled defiantly across the kid’s cheek.

The hand returns to his lap. He tenses up when his brain has processed what his body decided to do without permission or thought.

Hotch doesn’t say a word, his expression doesn’t change, nor do his eyes move from the rise and fall of Spencer’s chest.

Morgan flinches when the door opens, like he’s done something wrong, as if Spencer were fragile enough to shatter if he moved too close.

There is a woman in scrubs more professional looking than those the nurse had worn. She allows the door to close behind her as she approaches the foot of the bed, reaching out to unhook the clipboard that had been resting against the frame.

She isn’t covered in blood or clutching surgical instruments, but the sight of her and the knowledge that she had been the primary in charge of saving the kid’s life – of keeping his heart going and making his lungs work again – still dredges unease from the pit of Derek’s chest.

He still struggles to comprehend how long Spencer’s heart had been still, how long it had been since his lung folded in on itself and left him bloody and ragged against the precinct floor.

At least Hotch seems to understand he isn’t the most composed, because he takes lead and speaks with the doctor. She is probably a wonderful person – and not just because she saved their youngest agent – but Morgan cannot bring himself to engage in conversation or even look in her direction.

He is too focused on Reid. On the height his chest rises to before sinking back down, on the almost inaudible whistle of his nasal cannula.

Derek does absorb the important information the doctor exchanges with Hotch, but his primary focus is settled on the kid and every millimetre he moves.

He understands the bed will remain in this area until Spencer can wake up, blink, breathe, and demonstrate his ability to stay conscious. He will be transferred to a private room where he will be observed and allowed visitors, potentially around the clock.

He also comprehends what happened in the space between the bullet and the surgery. He hears of the lung collapse, of something called hemopneumothorax, which the doctor pronounces without a hint of hesitation. She briefly explains what a chest tube thoracostomy is and why herself and the team of medical professionals had to do as such. She speaks on behalf of the EMT’s, explains they were the only reason the kid didn’t fall too deep into haemorrhagic shock, and how they could turn his fortune around despite the somewhat prolonged respiratory failure he endured.

Hotch speaks with her respectfully, he has an extensive conversation about one of them overnighting in the kid’s room, thanks her when she agrees Spencer’s condition would benefit or at least stay secure with someone he trusted by his side.

There is a brief moment in which Hotch asks about brain injury in correlation to how long Reid went without air, and the mere idea of it makes Morgan want to empty his stomach.

“Nothing irregular appeared in the CT scan, but we will be running cognitive tests to confirm there aren’t any complications,” the doctor answers. Morgan continues to watch the slow movement of Spencer’s eyelids, never breaking concentration.

“And do you have an estimate on when he’ll regain consciousness?” Hotch asks.

“I’m expecting in the next half hour, but he will be tired,” she warns. Morgan manages an obligatory nod of understanding from his dazed state beside the kid’s bed. “We have him on some low-level, nonopioid pain medication. He may be sore or in pain once he wakes up, but the nurses will discuss treatment options he is comfortable with once he’s coherent.”

“Thank you,” Hotch says on both his own and Morgan’s behalf. He also dishes out their final goodbyes as the doctor excuses herself with instructions to call for a nurse upon any changes in his condition.

He lowers himself back into the chair and levels his eyes with Morgan.

“Once he wakes up and is moved to the private room, I’ll head back to the station to wrap up the case and send for the others to join you.”

“Alright,” Morgan murmurs. “Makes sense.” Hotch allows him a moment of quiet before breaking it.

“Glad to know he’s okay?”

“Yeah,” Derek croaks. “It’s better knowing… still worried, but – yeah. It’s easier just being here, with him I mean.” Hotch’s eyes crinkle in slight amusement, understanding entirely why lounging in Spencer’s presence is lightyears better than sitting in the waiting room to bask in concern.

Derek’s finger twitches against the thin sheeting beside Spencer’s arm. He is leaned forward so far; he could easily rest his chin against the mattress. Hotch thinks the man would be more comfortable doing so, but he remains without comment, watching the younger agent’s fingers thrumming across the sheeting in boredom and impatience.

\----

Shoving and elbowing his way back to consciousness was a battle. A battle Reid doesn’t particularly feel was worth it when his brain works itself back into gear for him to notice he isn’t surrounded by the steady, blanketing hums and vibrations of the jet.

He can no longer place the gentle thuds and taps of Gideon shuffling pieces around the chess board. Instead, he finds a small pocket of despondency as he realises, he misses the comforting sound.

Once he has managed to rule out where he _isn’t,_ the smell is the first thing Reid registers. He makes an educated guess on where he _was_ from there.

By now, the smell of antiseptic and alcohol-based sanitation was so intimately ingrained into him as the scent of a hospital that he barely had to pause before realising where he was. Whether the familiarity stemmed from the few occasions he convinced his mother as a child to let the nurses treat her injuries following an episode, or from the nearly consistent interviews and questions he had to conduct with victims who survived unsub attacks, he couldn’t be sure.

Regrettably enough, the next sense his brain decided to process was pain.

It was everywhere – crawling across his entire being like sickly little termites trying to burrow into the hollows of his bones.

Majority of his frame was merely aching, sore as if he had not moved in years and was suddenly stretching himself out like a ragdoll. Across his torso and along the column of his throat, spreading outward, was a rough outpouring of pain that far rivalled the discomfort of stiffness.

When he attempted to peel his eyelids open, the ache rocketed upwards into the forefront of his skull. Assumingly, the fluorescent lighting did nothing but further his discomfort.

Inhaling seemed to aggravate the tender skin in his throat. Pressing his eyes shut helped, or at least it lessened the burn of the sharp lights. Each small, deliberately shallow breath tickled something inside his nostrils. He frowned, tightening the tips of his fingers in wait of the numbness buzzing through them.

He stiffened when something warm and heavy enveloped his hand. The contact was enough of a shock that he instinctively opened his wary eyes to search for the cause of the sudden interaction.

_“Nghn,”_ he groaned, a small pitiful sound of distress at the blunt spike of pain that flared through his skull in the harsh glow of the room.

He was not entirely aware of everything around him, not with his eyes closed and not with the sluggish pace his brain was piecing things together and sending signals throughout his body.

Someone with a deep voice, that he partially recognised as an authority figure in his life, spoke quietly about getting a nurse. Or perhaps they said hearse. Spencer didn’t feel dead, but then again, he wouldn’t be sure until his head began to function again.

The warmth at his fingers constricted, enveloping his entire hand, and sliding against his palm.

“Hey,” somebody said through his cloud of confusion and muted awareness.

“… – ey?” He managed, blinking the blurriness from his vision, as weak as it was. “…id – ‘idon?” His throat was deathly hoarse and speaking felt like scraping sandpaper along the lining of his esophagus. Resorting to moaning again was a better option than staying quiet, at least until he could open his eyes enough to make out what – who – was clasping his hand.

“Reid?”

“Gid –” He coughed, his eyes filling with water as he did. It felt as though the walls of his throat were tearing apart. The sounds he made must have been concerning enough, because a second weight pressed against the bend of his elbow as the first pressure from his hand moved higher to his upper arm.

“Hey, easy. We’re gonna get you some water, kid.”

He had not entirely recorded the various parts of his body, and when the gentle pressure was applied, the rest of his blanks were filled in, along with the recognizable epithet.

“M’g’n?”

“Yeah – yeah. You’re good.”

In times like these, Reid was glad he was primarily surrounded by profilers who could understand him based on three letters of a six letter, two syllable name.

He blinked rigidly again, rolling his throbbing head to the side until the ceiling deviated blearily into a tan figure he was pleased to recognise. Derek smiled, something bright and relieved in his features that unwound Spencer’s remaining unease brought about by the confusion of waking up in a strange place.

He watches the older agent visibly relax through tired eyes, letting his body weight sink further into the bed as he allowed tension in his own body to drain away. “Scared us there,” Morgan murmurs quietly. Spencer imagines he can pick apart something in the man’s tone, a sincerity not often offered by the agent.

There is something warming in Morgan’s demeanour. Spencer thinks it might have to do with the two hands lightly placed against his arm, laying as though the older agent were prepared to do anything in his power to support him. It could also be the emotion so seldom displayed that blazes in Morgan’s eyes, which are locked firmly on his own.

Spencer had only remotely begun to ponder how he should respond when movement and a loud click indicated the return of what he assumed to be his unit chief.

From where his head was tilted, he could see just far enough to make out Hotch’s work attire as he neared the bed and slowed to a halt beside Morgan’s chair.

“Good to see you awake,” his unit chief says. His tone is not unkind, and the barest hint of a pleased smile quirks the edge of his mouth, or so Spencer thinks – he still can’t see properly.

“Water?” Morgan asks, diverting his attention to Hotch as he readjusted his arms, which are placed back in his lap.

Seemingly in answer, the door opens again as Hotch jerks his head in its direction. Somebody in scrubs – a nurse, Spencer guesses – enters the room.

“Doctor Reid,” the person – female, he notes – greets politely. Assumingly Hotch and Morgan had said something about his preferred title while he was out.

He watches tiredly as a tray is folded out from beside the bed and the cup of water is presented to him with a straw. He won’t go so far as to say it felt akin to heaven, but the sandpaper-like friction against his throat diminishes almost entirely, which is a blessing itself.

Along with the water comes a brief assessment of his pain levels. The nurse asks how he is coping without the assistance of a ventilator, which he had apparently required to breathe for some time. She also brings up whether he was happy being transferred to a private area, not that the room they were in was bustling.

Aside from the strenuous act of speaking and the bubbling crater of pain in his torso, Spencer is quite content with the idea of being moved into his own room to rest and properly recover from the anaesthetic. Then came the issue of relieving the aches and stabs of pain every time he shifted in place more than an inch.

The discussion which follows takes much out of him considering how difficult of an effort it is to keep his eyes open. He doesn’t have to rehash the issue of opioid based medications and pain relievers, and his IV is soon filled with something that will likely do half of the job without the risk of addiction.

When he finds himself three quarters of the way through his second cup of water, another nurse – a male in different coloured scrubs – enters the room, operating what looks to be some form of forklift-hybrid. The mechanism hooks onto the foot of the bed he’s in and moves it steadily without jolting him around at all.

Morgan stays at his side the entire ride down to his private room, like he has been cuffed to the bed himself, and Hotch hovers close behind.

The room he ends up in is decidedly for a long stay, which would worry Spencer if he weren’t flitting between consciousness and oblivion now that the edge of the pain was ebbing away.

Once the bed is ejected slowly into place, he forces himself to survey the area. The opposite side of the space has a half-drawn privacy curtain dividing the room into two halves. The side behind the curtain held a smaller bathroom area with a sliding door. The half of the room Morgan stood in had two waiting chairs, a TV screen on the far wall, and the door to exit into the hallway.

His IV was positioned beside the bed and he was hooked up to a few monitors, one of which measured his heart rate. Water was replenished and placed in front of him again as the nurse did her final checks and promised to return within the next few hours.

Spencer watched as Morgan sunk into one of the chairs beside his bed, managed a weak smile as Hotch folded his arms and updated him on the case, before promptly letting his eyes close of their own volition. He knows he needs the rest. Waking up had sucked away the little energy he had left.

The muffled conversation Hotch and Morgan shared as he settled in for the night – or day, he did not have an accurate grip on time – helped ease him back into a comfortable rest.

\----

“He’s alright, Derek.”

“I know that,” Morgan responds, but the words ring false in his mouth. He thinks Hotch can feel they do too.

“Then you need to relax.” Hotch stands from his chair, running one hand down the length of his tie as he does and glancing to the steady, healthy numbers beeping against the heart monitor to their right. “I can handle having two agents down for however long Reid needs to recover,” Morgan raises one brow in surprise. “But if you’re going to run yourself ragged with worry, trust me, you won’t be rested enough to justify being in the field once he’s back at work.”

It is a low blow, especially from Hotch, but Morgan understands the angle his superior is trying to attack the problem with. If he really does burn out from the incessant concern, by the time Spencer’s healthy enough to return to work, he sure as hell won’t be there at his side.

Morgan coaches his body to release, shoulders slackening and back properly slouching into the chair. Hotch nods once, pointing at him as he nears the door to leave, “keep me posted,” he orders. “I mean it.”

Eventually the door shuts behind him, leaving Derek alone with the dull sounds of the monitors and Spencer’s whistle-racked inhales.

“You’re fine, kid,” he mutters. It’s more for himself than Spencer, but it helps.

And in the privacy of a space closed-off from the rest of the hospital, he feels secure enough to lean further forward and run one careful finger up and down Spencer’s outstretched arm, smiling as the kid’s heart monitor gives – what he imagines to be – a pleased little beep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon that Spencer's middle name is Walter based on this tweet by MGG _"in celebration of the first day back on CM season 8 I am inventing reid facts. Spencer Reid's middle name is Walter #topsecretreidfact"_
> 
> Also! I made a CM blog! Pleasepleaseplease follow it, whether that be for updates on my fics, to send asks, prompts, your own headcanons, requests, whatever! Please follow :')
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/svn-f1ower-cm


	6. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My motivation is wavering slightly, I feel like I stretched this fic out too much :/
> 
> My tumblr is: @svn-f1ower-cm 
> 
> Please send me asks, anon is on if you'd prefer to stay anonymous <3

Hotch never actively enjoyed conversing with whoever was in charge of the case himself and the team were consulting on, but Riverton, Wyoming’s precinct was far from the worst he had dealt with. Everyone had seemed marginally competent, and the police chief he spent most of the time with was happy to help with anything if it got the case solved. 

He doesn’t know how anyone would have coped if the department had been anything less than cooperative on this particular case, especially with one of their own injured.

When he crosses the threshold of the precinct, thankfully enough the staggering amount of blood smeared across the flooring had been cleaned up, and the glass from the vending machine had been swept to the side. The desks were mostly vacated, seeing as it was nearing ten at night. The police chief’s office was lit, door open, and Hotch already knew the man had likely joined Rossi in the interrogation rooms.

“Sir?” He turns, already concerned with the tone of voice used to greet him. “Oh, Hotch. Thank god!” Penelope is weaving her way through the desks in the precinct, clutching a large go-bag and flurrying towards him.

“Garcia, I trust the flight in was fine.” She stops in front of him, looking an odd mix of flustered discomfort and desperation.

“What’s going on? Where’s Spencer, JJ wouldn’t tell me how ba –”

“He’s alright,” Hotch cuts in quickly. The woman’s mascara is already clumped enough without needing any panicky tears added to the mix. “The surgery went well; he was conscious for a while and transferred to his own room before I left.”

“He was okay?” She asks, already beginning to calm herself down.

“Yes, Morgan’s with him now.” Penelope sags into herself for a moment, breathing in a gasp of what Hotch can only guess is relief.

“What – what happened? I didn’t even find the address of the unsub until early afternoon. How did he even get hurt in the first place?!”

“I don’t know, I came back here to figure that out.” Hotch starts moving again towards the interrogation rooms, talking as he does so. “Look, Rossi and I are going to sort this out, Prentiss is going to help wrap up the actual case and JJ said she wanted to get Reid’s go-bag and meet Morgan at the hospital.” Penelope is hurrying along beside him, looking gravely unhappy. “Why don’t you go with JJ?”

“Yeah, okay,” she murmurs, sounding distant. Hotch pauses at the door, turns to face her and manages to pull his face away from the dedicated scowl it was laced with for the benefit of their detainee. “I’m sorry nobody spoke with you about his condition, but I promise he’s alright. Trust me, go see for yourself, he will be okay.”

Penelope nods, still detached in a disconcerting way as she gestures to her phone and turns to call JJ. Hotch catches the beginnings of their conversation and, satisfied that their technical analyst was sated for now, let himself into the interrogation area.

Rossi is standing with his arms folded in front of the viewing glass. At his left, Emily is sat calmly running their unsub through the motions, easing a confession from him despite the fact that all of their missing persons were alive and willing to testify against him.

In front of Rossi, through the window he’s sharply focusing on, is the police chief and the same witness that had been signing in at the front desk before himself and Morgan were about to leave earlier in the morning.

“He’s just walking him through the formalities,” Rossi says, not turning from the window.

“Do we know what the story is?” Hotch asks, stepping up beside his co-worker.

“The officer booking him in said he asked some routine questions about whoever he allegedly saw smashing up his ex’s car, and when the witness stood up, bits of her break light fell off his jacket.” Hotch shakes his head, knowing that the complete and utter stupidity would be partially amusing if it weren’t for the fact that one of his agents had paid the price for it. “So,” Rossi continued. “He freaked out, grabbed his gun, which they’d apparently missed during his sign in, and somewhere between being tackled and pulling the damn gun out, it got fired.”

“Did he admit to it?”

“No. He did say he had no idea there were federal agents in town, and that he wouldn’t have fired if he had known. But no, he hasn’t said a word about the girlfriend’s car,” Rossi answers flatly.

They exchange a glance as the police chief scoots his chair back and exits the room. He shakes his head wordlessly, a silent motion that gave the two men little faith in the witness being anything remotely reliable.

“He’s jealous, passionate, self-assured and seemed remorseful when Reid’s condition was mentioned,” Rossi points out. He looks to Hotch, “I’d say if you pull the security footage, he’ll react.”

“Confrontation is the best route?” Hotch repeats, trusting his partner’s profiling yet checking his suggested route of interrogation would hold up against a man who willingly kept a firearm in his possession in the middle of a precinct full of officers.

“Absolutely.”

\----

Morgan has been smoothing three fingers around Spencer’s wrist and up to the crook of his arm for the past forty minutes when a nurse knocks gently at the door and lets herself in.

“We have two visitors waiting by reception to come see him,” she informs. The nurse is careful as she takes some measurements and jots them down on the clipboard at the foot of the kid’s bed.

“Is one of them a blonde woman, probably wearing something colourful?” The nurse laughs quietly at Morgan’s guess, nodding in answer.

“I’ll have them sent on through. Just press the call button if he wakes up.”

Morgan doubts the kid will wake up anytime soon. He had been conscious and aware, murmuring short answers when addressed and wincing at every movement, but as soon as he was wheeled into the private room and hooked up to an IV, he was out like a light again. Really, they couldn’t blame him, he looked worn down to the bone.

Derek preferred him asleep to unconscious. Seeing the odd intervals of twitching and eyelid flickers was combating the issue of guilt churning in his chest, and there was a lot of it.

He was instilled with silence for several more minutes before Penelope was giving the door two tugs and flooding into the room with her arms stretched wide.

“Oh my gosh –” She immediately deflated upon seeing him, her eyes casting to Morgan’s in a wet haze of disappointment.

“Hey Girlie,” he mumbles, taking her hand without needing to stand from the kid’s bedside.

Penelope immediately slumps down into the chair Hotch left behind, reaching out for Spencer before pausing. 

“Is he…?”

“Just resting,” Derek assures. “He was really worn down after the surgery.” Penelope softens, continuing to reach one hand out that rattled amongst her many bracelets until her palm is pushing back the kid’s unruly fringe.

“Aw, Junior-G-Man,” she hums sadly, already carding her nails around in gentle circles across his scalp. “No wonder your Mom calls you Crash.”

Derek watches Penelope surveying Spencer until JJ stumbles into the room, duffel bag in hand, already looking off put and strangely anxious.

“Sorry, I was just – the stupid receptionist – they don’t like having more than two visitors at once and I had to explain tha –”

“It’s okay,” he disrupts, picking up on the way she translates her concern. “He’s okay, he’ll be alright. I promise.” JJ immediately sighs, dropping what Derek guesses to be Reid’s go-bag from the hotel.

He stands, letting Penelope’s hand go and gesturing for JJ to take his seat, which she does gratefully, as he stretches with a concealed grimace.

Penelope is still fussing with Spencer’s hair, and JJ clutches onto his hand like a lifeline. There is a crusted speck of blood against the kid’s neck that the nurses must have missed swabbing up during the operation. 

Morgan distantly remembers smearing his bloodied fingers across Spencer’s neck, searching for a pulse which wasn’t there. “Let me just…” he wipes it, frowns as it doesn’t move. Penelope turns her mouth into a pout and JJ presses her lips together so finely that Derek can’t even see them anymore as he ends up having to pick the clot away with the edge of his thumbnail.

Penelope goes right back to toying with the kid’s hair, and all three of them go still as a soft rumble of pleasure is sighed out when Spencer shifts in his sleep. He rolls into the contact, his eyes and nose scrunching for just a moment before he loosens again, breathing out a puff of contentment.

“Oh, Spence…” JJ whispers, her second hand coming up to rub at his wrist and arm as Derek’s had been.

He watches his two female teammates for a moment, observing the gentle angle of Spencer’s jaw as he wriggles himself further into the stiff hospital-grade pillows. He really needs to get this strange affection he has for the kid under control.

“I might grab a coffee from the cafeteria and give Hotch a call,” he declares, hoping the distance will shake off the remaining fixation he carries.

“Oh, I brought your go-bag from the room too,” JJ says kindly. “I figured you’ve been with him all day and you’re probably planning on staying overnight too.”

“Thanks,” he replies gratefully. It was already edging close to eleven, so he had really already begun his overnight.

“It’s in the backseat of the car,” she says, digging around in her jacket pocket with one hand to find the keys.

“Cool. You guys need anything?” He taps the doorframe with his knuckles, eager to stretch his legs, yet still hesitant to leave the kid in case he woke up again.

Penelope and JJ confirmed they were fine, and with a final once-over of Spencer’s resting form, Derek left the room and stepped into the hallway. 

\----

The hospital coffee tasted eerily similar to dirt. Moreover, Derek had received numerous sideway glances on his way through the halls to the cafeteria. He assumes the eyes he’d been pulling are due in part to the dark splotches of blood still staining majority of his shirt. There is an itch to remove them, because the nausea spinning in his stomach disagrees with the idea that majority of his best friend’s blood volume was currently spilled across his front.

JJ wasn’t lying when she threw him the keys and told him the go-bag was tucked into the backseat, and Derek has never felt so indebted to her in his life. He has been wearing the same shirt for over twelve hours now, and almost ten of those were spent covered in somebody else’s blood.

He only drinks half of the dirt-coffee; the rest is discarded in the outdoor bin on his way back through the waiting room. He finds it odd to pass through an area he previously spent many horrid hours shoved away in.

He hopes nobody in the team will ever be confined to a waiting space like that again.

The bathroom he changes in is cramped but clean. The door locks too, which Derek always sees as a positive.

There are a few lone speckles of red dotting across his forehead when he leans towards the mirror. He washes them away without another thought before packing up and striding into the hallway as he dials Hotch’s number.

“Hotchner.”

“Hey, it’s Morgan,” he greets. Hotch sounds stiff and distractible, far from a good mood. “How’re things going over there?” There’s a pause, then a large sigh before his boss responds.

“Well we know what happened – why our guy fired in the first place,” Hotch says curtly. If Morgan had to pinpoint the attitude, he hears distaste in the man’s tone. “Prentiss has finished wrapping up the case for everyone,” gratitude thickens in Hotch’s tone. “She’s going to help out here for a bit before we call Strauss and arrange some things.”

“That’s good,” Morgan manages. He finds himself aimlessly pacing the hallway outside Spencer’s room, steering clear of nurses and doctors making their rounds. “What’s um – what’s the deal with our guy?”

“The crime he was coming in as a witness for, the evidence fell out of his jacket and he panicked,” Hotch says dryly. He sounds a mixture of unimpressed and infuriated at the situation.

“ _Dipshit_ ,” Morgan can’t help but mutter. Hotch gives a noncommittal grunt in response to his insult, never outwardly agreeing, but not opposing all the same.

“Rossi’s in there with him now,” the unit chief explains. “He’s remorseful – almost cried when we showed him the tapes of Reid going down.”

Morgan does not like to picture it. If it was bad enough to watch in person, he isn’t going to willingly conjure up the memory. This isn’t the first time he’s felt this way. He practically asked Penelope to burn the tapes they had of Hankel.

“He’s apologised and sworn it never would have happened if he knew we were all federal agents.” Morgan rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and huffs an exasperated laugh. “All we need now is to charge him for this and the police chief said he’d sort out the original crime he was coming in as a witness for.”

“What’s that mean for the team? Will you guys head back or…”

He’s making a conscious effort to verbalise the separation of himself and the team, because there isn’t a reality in which he can see himself flying back to Quantico and leaving Spencer here.

“I’ll discuss some things with Strauss and work around Reid’s recovery period.” Morgan nods despite knowing his boss can’t see him. “How is he?”

“Hasn’t woken back up yet, but I stepped out for a bit to get changed.” He wonders how Penelope and JJ are faring without the genius awake to keep them entertained, assuming he really is still asleep.

“Alright, keep me posted. I’ll let you know what the plan is once I’ve spoken to Strauss.”

“Will do,” Derek finishes. Hotch ends the call and he slips the phone back into his pocket.

The door to Spencer’s room has a small, vertical running glass frame, but from outside he cannot make out the bed. He taps one knuckle against the glass quietly, smiling when JJ opens the door for him.

“Hey,” she passes through the door, shutting it behind herself. She levels her gaze carefully and folds her arms together. “He’s up,” she informs.

“Oh?” Derek can’t tell why his colleague looks partially distressed, especially if Spencer is supposedly awake again.

“He uh – he’s asking for Gideon,” JJ admits. Her eyes crinkle in sympathy when she glances back at the closed door.

“ _Oh…_ ”

The knowledge shouldn’t shock him, certainly considering the fact that the kid had been murmuring the name in his half-conscious, drowsy state earlier in the evening. But, against all odds, it does manage to take Derek by surprise.

Spencer had seemed coherent enough when he woke the first time. Morgan had wrongly assumed the sleep-induced whispers had been a once-off confusion.

“I’ll talk to him,” he rasps. His lips are dry and as much as he craves being close enough with the kid to know he’s okay, all he wants to do is turn on his heel and run until he can find Hotch who is far more likely to know how to cope with the situation. 

When he pushes the door open, Penelope looks up from her spot in the spare chair beside the kid’s bed. She smiles, but there is an unmistakeable dip between her brows which Derek has come to recognise as worry.

Spencer is sat upright in bed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his fist, still clearly half-asleep. It’s rewarding to see the colour which has returned to his face. One side of his hair has kinked up and outwards, leaving him looking slightly lopsided when he rolls his head to face Morgan with a bleary grin.

“Hey,” Derek says heartily. “How’re you doing, kid?”

“M’ okay,” Spencer answers. His voice is croaky and weak despite his efforts. Thankfully, JJ has thought ahead. She places another paper cup of water on the stand before tilting it further inwards above the kid’s lap. “Thanks,” he murmurs.

All three of them stay silent as Reid slowly works his way through the cup, stopping every few moments to inhale on a shudder. “Where’d Hotch go?” He asks after a considerable amount of time has passed.

Penelope looks to Derek, who shuffles his weight to the opposite foot.

“He uh, he had some things to wrap up at the station,” he admits. “Asked to stay updated, though.” He hopes Reid doesn’t have the rationality to ask about the reason he’s currently in the hospital.

“Oh, is the – the case…?” He trails off, wincing when he coughs with all the might of a flea.

“I talked to Emily. Everyone was accounted for,” JJ answers quickly. “A bit banged up, but alive.” She smiles sweetly, obviously as enamoured by Spencer’s unrelenting worry for others as the rest of them.

“‘S good,” he affirms. Penelope leans forward to move the blankets on his bed higher up until they tuck beneath his chin. His energy reserve is obviously beginning to dry up, and the warmth from the sheets only lulls him further. “Rossi n’ Gideon helping with that too?”

This time both JJ and Penelope look to Morgan for an answer.

“Spence,” he treads carefully. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Penelope catches onto his drift, worry sparking behind her eyes as she comprehends the fact that they might be dealing with amnesia as opposed to confusion.

Derek isn’t as worried as he could be, considering the kid remembers Rossi and had been mumbling Gideon’s name previously too.

“I – uhm…” Spencer’s face wrinkles in bewilderment as he tries to conjure an answer to Morgan’s question. “The precinct…” he states with hesitancy. “Uh, you said I could only have… t – two coffees while you were out.”

Derek snorts, shaking his head in disbelief. Of course, Spencer would remember the offhanded remark he had made only a minute prior to being shot through the lung.

“Yeah, good – that’s great,” he praises. Spencer’s lips curl upward into a smile. “What about the team, Pretty Boy? Who works with us?”

The kid’s face drops, his eyes opening properly. He looks to JJ, then to Penelope, back to Derek. His gaze jumps to the ceiling as he thinks, his tongue moving inside his mouth as if he were mimicking everyone’s names to himself.

Morgan cannot see when the realisation hits, because Spencer’s threadbare and utterly exhausted demeanour is too difficult to read past. But he does hear it.

“Oh,” the kid sighs, sounding entirely defeated. “Sorry… I uh – I didn’t…”

“It’s okay, it’s alright,” Penelope fusses overtop of Spencer’s unneeded apology. “We just – we were worried, y’know. But it’s okay now.”

Derek can’t tell if the analyst is assuring herself or Spencer, but he’s glad she’s there to stifle Reid’s guilt.

\----

The four of them have only played three rounds of cards from the deck in Spencer’s go-bag before Derek’s phone goes off. He holds a finger up to excuse himself from the room and lays his hand of cards down, knowing full well either Penelope or Spencer will look at them.

It’s Hotch on the phone, and Morgan’s heart sinks when he realises Strauss isn’t budging on wanting as many of them back before tomorrow night.

“Well what are we going to tell her?” He asks sharply. “It’s not as though Reid can just hop on a plane back to Quantico,” he hisses. “And we aren’t about to leave him here, stranded.”

“I know that,” Hotch says calmly. “I need you to speak with the doctors, so I can come back to Strauss with whatever he requires.”

“Well I know he’s not about to be let on a plane anytime soon,” he mutters gruffly. Hotch does not respond. “I’ll talk to them,” he relents.

“Thank you,” Hotch answers. Morgan ends the call and turns to wander back to Spencer’s room when he sees JJ exiting.

“Hey,” she sighs. “Just picking some coffee up for _somebody_.”

“Ah, out played again?” He grins. JJ frowns, ignoring the dig only because she knows Morgan loses just as often. “Cafeteria coffee is trash, he probably won’t finish it,” he says.

“Good,” JJ clips. “He’s probably not even supposed to have caffeine yet.”

Derek shrugs, pushes open the door and waves after her. Both chairs inside the room are empty, and Spencer has steepened the incline of his bed even further.

“Hey, where’s Pen?” He asks casually as he seats himself in one of the chairs.

“Bathroom,” Spencer answers.

Derek finds himself staring at the kid. He had begun the card game squinting and complaining like a grandparent before JJ rifled through his go-bag and put a pair of glasses in front of him. _“They must’ve taken my contacts out during surgery,”_ he had grumbled.

With the frames he hasn’t seen the kid wear in years, there’s something formidable about how endearing he looks with them on.

“What?” Spencer says, his voice still ringing with roughness from the intubation.

“Nothing,” Derek shakes his head, pressing his lips together to keep from smirking. Spencer frowns incomprehensively, the glasses slipping down his nose before getting pushed back up again with one spindly knuckle. “I just – you haven’t worn those in a while.”

Spencer flushes, touching the edge of the frames pensively. “I don’t mean it in a bad way,” Derek reassures. “They suit you.”

Spencer’s cheeks somehow grow rosier at the comment. He blinks twice and licks his lips before staring back down at his lap.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments really do mean a lot to me, pinkie promise I read them and smile like an idiot.
> 
> If anybody has suggestions for what they might want to see in the final chapter(s?) I'm honestly real open to suggestions atm :)


	7. Denouement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Throws this at you*  
> I... tried my best... i swear, pls appreciate - I am this ! close ! to crawling under my covers and calling it a day, a month really. Too many wips, don't give up now >:o
> 
> Rose, this is dedicated to you because I didn't realise you'd read my writing and if I had, I probably would've dedicated a lot more to you by now <3

Spencer wakes to a hushed conversation.

Typically speaking, he had the presence of mind to keep his eyes plastered shut and his chest even with each exhale. Instead, he blinks in wait for the room to swivel back from its blurred texture and sucks a shaky breath in through his nose.

“Hey,” both the girls greet him with a sympathetic smile. Penelope rushes to fold his tray table out and angle a straw towards him.

“‘hanks,” he croaks, closing his eyes again to down half the cup she offers him. JJ watches him carefully, her eyes darting between his face and where his bandaging must lie beneath the thin hospital sheets. “What’s wr’ng?” He cautions.

The two women exchange a glance, clearly communicating without words. Spencer can profile them, as tired as he is. There is worry present, as is guilt. He stares, waiting patiently as Penelope sinks into her chair and reaches out for his wrist.

Spencer offers his hand without thought, smiling slightly as her warmth cups his shaky fingers.

“It’s Strauss,” she relents. “She wants us back tonight, sweetie.” Penelope is crestfallen, but resentment is harbouring behind her careful exterior, and Spencer is touched she feels so strongly for him.

“‘S okay,” he assures. “I can fly down once I’m discharged.”

JJ turns towards the glass pane of the room’s door, tapping her foot impatiently. Spencer perks at the movement. “Is Der – Morgan – is Morgan okay?” He turns his chin up, embarrassed despite knowing neither of the girls care as much as he does.

“Yeah, yes, of course. He’s just talking to your doctor down the hall,” Penelope answers, touching a spare hand to her chest, mimicking Spencer’s momentary distress. “Everything’s good,” she promises. “In fact, he said Hotch, Rossi and Em are on their way.”

“Oh,” he sinks into the pillow, “good.” He pauses, straining for a moment to think about his words before speaking. “Hotch um – he looked kinda… overwhelmed.” He looks downward, picking insistently at his cuticles. “I think Morgan stressed him out,” he admits, “I remember hearing them.”

“After surgery?” Penelope asks, head cocked to the side as she squeezes his hand happily.

“Uh, no – I think, before?” Things were hazy, events muddled, and his internal timeline was skewed across all directions. The unknown was something he had always hated, even more so when it involved his recall ability.

“Must’ve been before the EMT’s arrived,” JJ guesses. Penelope furrows her brow, looking displeased at the concept. Her hand tightens around Spencer’s and she turns back to face him with a flick of her hair.

“Doesn’t matter, Hotch is alright,” Penelope declared. “I spoke with him at the precinct, he was fine,” she tilts her head, smiling softly in guarantee.

Spencer closes his eyes, managing a weakened grin of his own. He only opens them again when Penelope squeaks excitedly, her grip intensifying as she shuffles in the chair.

“My precious hunk of chocolate!” She says enthusiastically, waving someone into the room.

“Hey,” Derek greets warmly as he’s ushered in. His eyes immediately swivel to Spencer, and they crinkle lovingly when he sees the boy sat upright. “How’re you doing, kid?” He takes the seat beside Penelope and leans forward to squeeze his shoulder gently.

“Mhm,” Spencer presses out, half an answer and half noise of contentment. He twists into the contact, puffing out through his nostrils and dropping his forehead against the older profiler’s arm for only a moment before pulling back. “Just tired, ‘s all,” he admits.

“Yeah?” Derek hums, rubbing small circles into the dip of his arm. “Why don’t you get some sleep, huh?”

Spencer wrinkles his nose, wriggling his bare feet beneath the sheets.

“I just woke up,” he mutters. JJ gives him a compact expression, her folded arms tucking closer to her body as the door clicks open again.

“Heeey,” Emily drawls, pushing her head into the room as if to check he were awake. Spencer can hear Rossi and Hotch discussing in the hall as everyone makes room for the three of them. “Hi, Reid,” the brunette says, shuffling into the gap between Derek and Penelope’s chairs.

He gives a small wave, furrowing deeper into his pillow as his two superiors file in to join them all. Hotch jerks his head in Morgan’s direction, and to Spencer’s disappointment, the agent stands to join him outside.

“What’re they –”

“Hotch is just keeping him up to date with the case,” Rossi interjects, smiling kindly for the first time Spencer can remember.

He feels petulant and disregarded. Everyone seems to be happy swamping him in their worry, but nobody is treating him like the capable agent he wishes he could be seen as. Penelope is radiating concern and Emily keeps looking to JJ as if expecting her to burst into tears. Rossi was far too eager to answer his question for Spencer to really believe him.

Hotch and Morgan both look incredibly terse when they re-enter the room, and Spencer suspects Morgan had just been informed of their departure later that evening. He takes his seat back beside Penelope and the room stays silent.

Spencer wants to squirm in discomfort with the number of eyes on him, but instead he stares at the bedsheets, counting loose threads until someone decides to break the insufferable quiet.

“Reid?” Hotch waits for him to slowly meet his eyes, his face taught with guilt. “Strauss wants us back at the office for tomorrow morning.” Hotch speaks as though waiting for Spencer’s permission, and the mere concept of such is baffling to him.

“Y – yeah. That’s um – that makes sense,” he shrugs. “‘Specially with all the paperw’rk…”

He jostles when a hand brushes his wrist. A calloused thumb presses at the back of his hand and he looks up to see Derek pushed against his bed. He blinks carefully, unsure of the contact in a room full of their co-workers.

“I spoke with your doctor, kid,” Morgan explains. “You aren’t cleared to fly for at least three weeks.”

He forces his dried lips into a thin line, frowning at the information. 

All he can think about was how badly he wanted to return to work, to sit at his desk across from Emily and Derek, on a day reserved for paperwork and files. How he yearns for the familiar tang of caffeine against his tongue, or rushed glances in accordance with Morgan’s teasing grins. Spencer wants normality, routine, an everyday ritual he can look forward to again.

“I don’t even know if I’ve got three weeks of leave,” he mumbles despairingly.

“It’s covered, there’s no way you’d be fit for field work regardless,” Hotch points out rather sharply. He seems to have picked up on Reid’s instinctual urge to distract himself with work. “Morgan’s leave is too.”

“What?” Spencer looks between Derek and their unit chief incredulously. “Why would he need leave as well?”

Derek smiles lopsidedly, lifting one shoulder as if he hadn’t argued tooth and nail for the responsibility of staying behind in Wyoming to get Spencer home for recovery.

“You think we’d just leave you out here and expect you to fly back on your own?” He laughs.

“Well, I mean… it isn’t exactly feasible to expect that I –”

“Kid,” Derek interrupts, “just take the win.” Spencer blinks for a moment before returning his grin, feeling half-doped up on the idea of having so much time off with Morgan at his side. He can feel the warmth radiating from everyone else in the room. What had previously been annoyance at the fact that he was curled up in a hospital bed and surrounded by concern, was replaced by the knowledge that he had them all at his side.

“You’re going to wait and fly back with me?” He asks to clarify; his words slow and sallow from his mouth.

“Remember when Hotch almost blew his damn eardrums out?” Derek says, jabbing his thumb in the direction of their unit chief with his humorous smile still plastered on. Spencer nods in understanding. “We’re doing that, once you’re cleared.”

“What?” He choked, shuffling himself further upright. “Are you kidding? That’s almost a thirty-hour drive.”

“Why would I joke about somethin’ like that, genius?” Derek laughed fondly, taking in the expression of disbelief on the kid’s face. Hotch stood with his arms crossed, watching the exchange with some calibre of humour.

“I – you’re joking, right?” Spencer stuttered. “Hotch?”

“Reid,” the man held his arms up in defence, as though his hands had been metaphorically tied. “We’re just lucky Strauss isn’t putting a timer on when you’re both needed back.” Morgan rolled his eyes from the side of Spencer’s bed, looking thoroughly put-out at the mention of the woman. “There’s a certain element of risk to flying after this kind of invasive surgery,” he admits.

“Come on, we’ll take it easy,” Derek distracts, leaning back in his chair and observing the way Spencer exhales with a perfectly carried tension. “Think of it as a road trip,” he encourages.

“I’ve never… I’m not aware of what a ‘road trip’ usually entails,” Spencer says unsurely.

“Oh, One-Eighty-Seven, you’re missing out!” Penelope clucks, waving an excited hand in his direction and opening her mouth to elaborate. “You’ve got the radio, and the windows rolled down, all the lights at night too – and gosh, you’re going to _love_ the long car ride candy, trust me.”

“I can’t even sit up for longer than an hour without hurting,” he says testily.

“Well then I’ll be sure to rent a car with a passenger seat that reclines then,” Derek stifles his argument. “You can take the travel pillow out of your bag and try get some rest,” he urges.

Emily and JJ are both thoroughly amused by the conversation topic, and Rossi looks surprisingly understanding of Reid’s hesitation, but with the excitement in Derek’s eyes, Spencer can’t bring himself to act irritable about the arrangement.

“It sounds fun,” he relents, meeting the other man’s gaze with careful consideration.

In the end, the team’s departure time was six, and they all chose to blow up his phone with ‘rest well,’ ‘good luck,’ and ‘get better soon,’ messages after arriving.

“You’re certainly popular,” Derek teases, glancing towards the constant vibrations of Spencer’s device.

“Sure,” the kid mumbles. He’s tucked up onto his side, the hospital bed sheet clumped beneath his chin, eyes fluttering shut every few moments as his heart rate slows at a gentle decline. “You should g’ back t’ the hotel… get some proper rest,” he suggests tiredly.

“Nice try, not happening, kid.” Derek doesn’t bother looking up from his magazine. He’s sitting how Spencer pictures a teenage delinquent would, with his back to the arm rest and legs draped over the opposite side of the chair. “Why do you think both our go-bags are here?” Spencer groans, weakly tugging the sheets up closer to his chin.

“You’re kidding,” he sighs. “No hotel room?” Derek shakes his head, still idly flipping his way through a magazine. “You’re gonna hurt y’r back,” he warns half-heartedly, already knowing Derek would pay him no mind.

A warmth rumbled gently beneath his skin at the knowledge that Derek was choosing to stay overnight in a hospital room for him. There was an element of guilt involved, but not enough to compel him into an argument. Not when he was this tired, at least.

“Need anything?” Morgan asks, finally sparing him a glance from above the top edge of his page-turner.

_“Mm mm,”_ he hums.

“Alright, try rest up then,” Derek suggests.

“Wake me up ‘n the morn’ng,” he slurs, vividly aware of the fact that Derek would ignore his request if it gave him an extra hour of rest.

\----

_“St’p, please… hurts – don’t –_ Morg’n _…”_

_There is blood on his hands, and it burns him. He can feel welts rising beneath the surface of his skin._

_Something is churning below him; it produces a sound so sickening he thinks he may be dying. There is a splitting pitch that cracks at each interval, and a wheezing fills the space in between._

_“Please – please…”_

_This is a sound he knows he recognises, and it helps him register a heavy unease – closer to distress, really. A spark of panic flickers at the base of his skull as he listens to the choked-out breathlessness beneath him._

_“Morg’n, M’rg’n – Derek –”_

_There it was, he thinks, the hysteria that comes along with the package deal of_ caring _about someone like this. He had to face the downside of being so wholeheartedly invested in a magnet for trouble stumbling around like a new-born deer, oblivious to his utter devotion._

_Even in his dreams he struggles to face reality. He focuses on the feeling of Spencer’s blood seeping into his pores like acid rather than the noises that escape from his failing lungs._

_Fingernails scrabble at his chest, leaving scarlet markings in their wake. “Please, please – pleasepleaseplease – I can’t – I can’t…” The wheezy pleas break into a rolling tidal of hacking, gargled coughs. Derek can still remember the sensation of blood spraying against his skin, hands pressed to wound, ebony eyes to meet hazel. “Der – r‘k –”_

The hospital room is cold when he opens his eyes. Cold enough that his toes curl into the soles of his boots.

Spencer’s I.V has been removed overnight, and Derek bears a small amount of culpability at sleeping through one of his check-up’s. His eyes are closed, head turned to the side. It’s comforting to see him asleep like he is on the jet as opposed to laid flat, folded into the hospital sheets like a corpse.

There is a knot in his shoulder, and he curses himself for not repositioning throughout the evening. When he unfolds his limbs and sits upright, a blanket slips from his body onto the floor. Derek frowns, picking it up and wrinkling his nose in distaste for the scratchy sensation of the taught fabric.

_Fingernails scrabble at his chest._

At least he knew the oddly vivid dream wasn’t entirely formed by his subconscious. Glancing in Spencer’s direction at a brief movement, he finds himself smiling.

The kid has rolled further onto his side – closer to his stomach now – and tucked one bent wrist beneath his chin, curled inwards against his neck.

The blue-rimmed clock above the door reads ten forty-two in the morning. He’s surprised the staff hadn’t woken them earlier but considering this was the fifth night they had slept at the hospital – third without the rest of the team present – he isn’t wildly taken aback. Spencer could be cleared to check out anytime after a consultation with his doctor, so Derek resigns himself to more magazine reading until the kid wakes on his own.

It’s nearing midday when a small huff escapes Spencer’s lips. He has managed to reposition himself, head against the pillow, turned to face Derek, chest and stomach pressed against the mattress with one leg pulled halfway to his chest.

_“Mmph,”_ the kid groans. Derek bends the magazine he’s clutching, arching his neck to watch the younger man squirm into an upright position. It takes several seconds for Spencer to look up and catch his eye. “Oh – morning,” he greets as he rubs one eye with the back of his fist.

“Hey,” he hums nonchalantly, glancing down to the reading material and letting Spencer shuffle around until he seemed comfortable. “Itching to get out of here?”

“Uh yeah, absolutely. I just want to put my normal clothes on.” Derek huffs out a laugh, biting the inside of his cheeks to stop from commenting on the several occasions he had helped the kid walk to the bathroom and caught an eyeful of long, pale legs that the hospital gown had so thoughtfully provided for him.

“Well you’re lucky I’ve rented out the car then, kid. We just need to get your final post-op check-up done and then we can hit the road, yeah?”

“Kay,” Spencer nods. His tone is edging far closer to dejected than it is excited, and Derek knows for a fact the poor kid has been feeling cooped up in this hospital room.

“Alright,” he starts, dropping the magazine with a flourish. “Spill it, Pretty boy.” Spencer shoots him a mock look of curiosity which fades away as soon as he narrows his eyes at the man.

“Penelope made it sound like an adventure. We’re just driving back to Quantico; I don’t understand why you’re both so excited about it.” He shrugs, fiddling with the bedsheet and looking unhappy that Derek had managed to dig the information out of him like a scalpel. 

“Would you understand if we swung by Yellowstone?”

“Swung by,” Spencer snorts, not looking up from his hands. “I believe the term ‘swinging by’ a location implies we’d be driving past it in the first place. Yellowstone is almost three hours in the opposite direction.”

“Didn’t Hotch say Strauss hadn’t put a timer on when we’re required back, huh?”

Spencer scowls at the argument, but his cheeks move from pale to a rosy flush, and Derek is intuitive enough to know that the kid can’t help his excitement.

“Did you know that Yellowstone is bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware _combined?_ ” Spencer bursts, his enthusiasm shining through.

“I did not,” Derek grins.

\----

Spencer spends almost twenty minutes arguing with both Derek and the doctor about his capability to walk down the hall and into the carpark without a wheelchair. It wasn’t as though his legs had been shot off – although he was informed by a stiff looking Morgan that there had been initial worry for his spinal cord and mobility due to the exit wound’s positioning.

He exits with a brown paper bag of medication the size of his head, which he scowls at as they weave their way through to the car Derek’s rented.

“You aren’t going to take any of that, are you?” He guesses disappointedly, sounding apathetic to Spencer’s caution.

“Nope,” he scoffs. “Sure was interesting listening to the doctor work out when I should be though.” Derek shakes his head, pulling the set of keys from his pocket and gesturing to the passenger side.

“You’re going to get an infection,” he warns, as though the threat were enough to make Spencer unwittingly guzzle the pills. 

“Actually, the likelihood of developing a surgical site infection varies from a miserly one to three percent. And considering the state of the facilities, it’s hardly likely that I’ll ev –”

“Okay – okay,” Derek hushes, jamming the key into the ignition and pausing to shift in his seat until he’s facing the kid. “But you’re taking the low-level pain killers as soon as you start to get sore.” Spencer would have brushed the overly concerned comment aside and done things his way, but Derek has levelled him with his dark eyes. It’s penetrating and yanks him harshly back to a reality in which his friend had been forced to watch him recover for several days.

“Okay,” he promises.

“Good,” Derek settles, turning back to survey the lot before pulling out onto the street. “I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Spencer’s chest thickens at the man’s comment, and he turns away to look through his window, attempting to ignore the flutter of emotions and potential responses he could formulate. The two of them ruminate on that note in silence for roughly third of a mile until Derek continues as though they hadn’t stopped speaking in the first place.

“You know that, right?”

“What, that you don’t like seeing me hurt?” Spencer turns to stare out of the front of the car, watching the roads roll past vacantly. “I would certainly hope not, Morgan. That would be quite sadistic of you.”

“Reid –”

“I mean, in more accurate terms you’d be depicting a more complex emotion – schadenfreude – which is different to sadistic personality disorder in the way that yo –”

“Reid!”

Spencer shuts his mouth, throat burning in shame. “Damnit man, I’m trying to –” He can see Derek turning to glance in his direction, and he wills back the redness scorching his face. “I was trying to be serious.” His fingers are taught around the wheel of the car, a vein in his neck stiffening as his jaw clenched and released.

Eventually, after a much more excruciating stretch of quiet, Derek sighs. “I just wanted you to know that I was being real. I don’t like seeing you like that – like this. When you’re hurting.”

“It’s part of the job, you know,” Reid finds himself explaining timidly. “With what we do… I mean, this kind of stuff is expected.”

“No,” Derek grates. “No, not like this.” Spencer waits patiently for an expansion on his rocky argument, and when it comes, he isn’t disappointed. “What happened at the station, that wasn’t ‘part of the job,’ okay?”

Spencer shrugs, tilting his head to the side as though he weren’t watching his co-worker’s lips move with each word. “It was a freak accident and should never have gone down like it did.”

“What did happen?” He ventures.

“Hotch didn’t talk to you?” Morgan questions.

“Well no, not exactly,” he shakes his head in amusement, “he told me to just focus on being able to sit upright for longer then ten minutes at a time.” Derek opens his mouth to answer, but Spencer shuts him down as they roll to a red light. “It’s fine. If you say it was a freak accident, then it was an accident. I don’t need to know.”

The ‘ _I trust you_ ’ goes unsaid.

“Yeah?” Derek asks, shifting again to face him properly.

“Yeah. I get it,” he says softly. “I don’t think I’d want to walk you through your near-death experience if you’d been in my place.”

Derek presses his lips together in a repressed grin, looking an assortment of proud and impressed. He reaches across the handbrake, tilting his hand out in an offering.

“C’mere.”

Spencer’s barely brushed their fingertips together when the vehicle hits their horn from behind, causing both of them to jump.

Derek notes the green light ahead of them with a curse and pulls forward, waving in apology at the rear-view mirror. “Sorry, you alright?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t know,” the older man replies. “How’re the ribs?”

“Fine.” Spencer waits a long moment before the piercing looks Derek is attempting to shoot at every slow corner get the better of him. “A little stiff, I guess.”

“Next rest stop,” Derek huffs exasperatedly. “I’m filling up the tank and getting you something to wash the pills down.” Spencer only hums in mild agreement.

The mostly empty roads roll by them, and Spencer sags against his seat belt, forehead pressing the cool window as they pull into a small gas station. It’s devoid of any other cars, thankfully, because there’s only one pump station for them to use. “You stay here. Anything else you want?”

“Uhh, no. I’m okay, thanks.” Derek frowns at him through the partially lowered driver’s seat window.

“Yeah well, you didn’t eat much of your breakfast.” Spencer shoots him a look that properly translated the argument of _hospital grade food, Morgan. What was I supposed to do?_ Derek raises his hands in defeat, mumbling something as he wanders into the store.

Spencer picks at his nails and tries to keep his eyes on the fields surrounding the rural gas station, and not on Derek’s figure through the tinted glass of the storefront, even as he exits with the chime of a bell.

“Hey, look what they had,” he calls, shaking a bag of something plastic sounding. There are two water bottles tucked beneath his arm and Spencer gratefully reaches out as Derek slips them back into the car.

He drops a colourful bag into the front seat, allowing Spencer’s curiosity to take over as he pumps the gas.

“Are these – ?”

“Yeah, your obsession. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how many of them you keep in your desk at work.” Spencer flushes, peeling open the bag and beginning to unwrap the candy.

“They’re nice and they help me concentrate,” he mutters half-heartedly, sticking the lollipop into his mouth and drowning out the smell of gasoline with artificial strawberry. “You know, giving my mouth some stimulation while I work keeps me from getting distracted so easily.”

“Nice, Reid,” Derek laughs heavily over the clanking of the pump being hooked back up. Spencer arches one brow, considering his words for a moment.

“Oh,” he realises. “I didn’t mean it like th –”

“Relax, kid. I’m just playing.” Derek teases, slipping into the front seat and leaning over to reach Spencer’s bag of medications. He tears it open and begins pawing through them all. “Now which of these… – which’ll help more, anti-inflammation or a standard painkiller?”

“I’ll just have a couple low-level painkillers,” Spencer answers, uncapping the water bottle and letting Derek tip the recommended dosage into his hand. If there was hair on his palm, it would have stood on edge as Derek’s calloused fingers bumped against his skin.

He sighs, eyeing the medicine in distaste. “I don’t really thi –”

“Please?” Derek cuts him off. “Just take them for my sake of mind.” His eyes harden in concern when Spencer fidgets unhappily in his seat. “Spence…”

“When did you start calling me that?” The kid asks, so suddenly that Derek stumbles for balance on their rocky plane of conversation. He must look taken aback because Spencer presses forward. “I mean, JJ calls me Spence all the time, and Penelope started doing it after a couple months too. I just – I’ve never heard _you_ say it.”

Derek considers him slowly, watching the slight shake of his hand still cupping two small pills.

“I can stop,” he responds eventually.

“No! No – I didn’t mean – I never… I don’t _not_ like it.” Derek holds back a grin at the reaction he’s managed to pull from the kid.

“Drink up,” he instructs, tapping the base of Spencer’s wrist and watching as he pulls the lollipop from his lips and replaces it with the medication. He won’t lie, having front seat tickets to Spencer’s neck as he swallows is – it’s interesting enough – and he can’t exactly find the effort to turn away. He tells himself it’s to make sure the pills don’t end up on the floor of the car, but he isn’t fooling anybody with that excuse.

He starts the engine and waits patiently for Spencer to clip himself back in, lollipop back to hanging from his lips.

“So,” he starts, moving back onto the road. “ _Spence,_ huh?” 

“Shut up,” the kid bites through his own amusement, smiling as Derek laughs openly.

“I like it, it’s cute.” He admits, “suits you.”

Spencer goes quiet and Derek tightens his fingers on the wheel. He’s torn between risking a glance in the kid’s direction and potentially facing a wall of discomfort, ignoring the inadvertent implication he’s made or driving them both off the next cliff and avoiding everything altogether.

“I uh,” Spencer coughs. “Did you know in Greek mythology, Adonis was born from his mother who was in the form of a myrrh tree? He was actually sent to the underworld where he grew into someone known for his beauty. He chose to be Aphrodite’s lover until he was mauled by a wild boar on a hunt and died in her arms while she cried.” 

Derek listens to Spencer’s rambling story as best he can, attempting to let his mind brush over the _died in his lover’s arms_ sequence of events.

“Aphrodite’s tears actually mixed with Adonis’ blood and together they created what we call today, the anemone flower. The – the uh, the flower has a unique se –”

“Spence,” he says. “Was this going somewhere?” Derek winces when the car falls silent again. He doesn’t mean to be harsh, but the talk on lovers, death, blood and tears is pulling him too sharply into the headspace of his dream. Nightmare, he supposes it was.

“I um… Penelope has called you that before. And she – she isn’t wrong.”

“What?”

“Adonis,” Spencer answers quietly. “I was going to expand on why he was known as the god of beauty and desire, but I uh – I got side-tracked.” Derek takes a moment to process the response and try to unpack what the kid was attempting to convey. “I don’t know how to take compliments,” Spencer murmurs.

“So, your idea was to fire one straight back at me?” He prods.

“I mean –”

“I’m kidding,” Derek waves him off, the smile back on his face. “Thanks, kid.”

“You don’t need to thank me for spouting facts, you know?” When Derek chances a look across the vehicle to meet Spencer’s eyes, he’s met with incredibly red cheeks – red enough that he’s worried the boy has manages to give himself a surgical site infection – and a fidgety energy he never seems to lose.

“So, they are facts then, yes?”

“What?”

“You’re _cute_ and I’m practically the god of beauty and desire?” He stares straight at the road, swerving gently for potholes and diverting his attention for fear of crossing a line Spencer had potentially drawn in the sand that he’s missed.

“I mean they can’t really be facts, they’re opinions.” He nods, not saying anything more at the conclusion. “But um, if it helps… they’re opinions we both seem to believe.”

Derek chuckles, shaking his head fondly. Spencer’s face is still burning in his peripherals.

“You’re selling yourself short,” he ventures. Spencer shuffles his elbows about and stays quiet. The next time Derek rolls around a corner, he tilts his head to check on the kid. He’s hiding a smile by turning to the side, but not well enough to distract Derek from the right path he’s stepped foot on. “You can be my Aphrodite,” Derek says. It’s fifty percent joke, fifty percent seriousness, and he hopes it won’t land him in a hole he’ll struggle to crawl out from.

“Wouldn’t you be the Aphrodite in this situation? I seem to recall –”

“Reid, I swear to god, if you make a joke about almost dying in my arms, I _will_ pull this car over.” He knows it could be in reference to anything, but Derek is fairly certain Spencer’s argument revolved around the fact that he did essentially die in his arms – if the lack of pulse had anything to say about it.

Spencer was more of an Aphrodite if Derek had to pick, considering the length and volume of his hair, the sharp jut of his cheekbones and the way his lollipop has managed to stain his lips cherry.

“You should let yourself cry more often.” Derek chokes on a laugh, raising both his eyebrows in amusement as Spencer tucks himself further into the passenger seat, legs folded against the door.

“Yeah, and why’s that?”

“It’s humanising?” Spencer guesses self-consciously. _Made me feel like it mattered to you when I went down in the field._

“Yeah, well… next time you get shot and start bleedin’ out everywhere, I’ll make sure to cry on you a bit more,” Derek says, less mirth in his tone now. “We can make some flowers for the rest of the team.” Spencer grins in response, hopelessly unaware of the detrimental effect the image of his body being wheeled to the emergency operating room has on Derek’s ~~already unstable~~ emotional state.

If Derek thinks hard enough, back through his time working with Spencer, negating the various occasions in which the kid has gotten himself shot, held hostage, or pistol whipped, he shouldn’t be surprised that this incident seems to be dredging up only partially repressed feelings.

Physical contact seems to be the trigger for him. Whether it be a failed fist bump, a hand on shoulder, lips on cheek, it was difficult for the lingering touches to not remain in the forefront of his mind.

There are two occurrences which stick to the edge of his awareness like old clothing that has become sentimental.

_“Thank you,”_ Spencer had murmured. He leaned across Derek’s half of the couch and pressed a chaste, second-long kiss against Derek’s temple before shuffling back to the opposite corner.

It had been feverishly warm, relaxing in an instinctual way that Derek could not explain. Spencer smelled of sweetened coffee and something undeniably _him_. The skin of his temple throbbed for the entirety of the game, and he struggles to concentrate on the road now as he recalls the gentle sensation.

_“Uh, you – you’re um,”_ a cough. Then, _“you’re welcome,”_ was all his stuffed-with-yearning brain had managed to produce at the time.

And second to this in a horribly disastrous way, is how Spencer’s hand felt in his own as his grasp on consciousness waned. 

He had slipped his free hand from the boy’s slim wrist and into his palm instead, lacing their fingers together. _“Squeeze if you can hear me, kid.”_ The response was a deteriorating grip, weak enough for him to almost miss it over the sound of Spencer’s wheezing.

As cliché as it sounded, the hand was losing heat and did not grace him with the tingle of memory when Spencer was pulled away on a stretcher.

“Derek.” He blinks, forcing the fleeting encounters to the back of his head. “The turnoff is up here, if you uh – if you still want to stop by Yellowstone?”

“Course, are you kidding?” He says casually, taking the turn about five miles faster than he should’ve.

_Latest symptom of being in love with your best friend – easily distracting memories of simple, platonic touches that probably shouldn’t be interpreted as otherwise._

He pulls over the beaten path, slowing as rougher patches of potholes make Spencer hiss through his teeth. “Sorry, kid. Looks like we won’t be taking any hiking trails if you’re hurting this much.”

“Wasn’t planning on it anyway,” Spencer grits out.

\----

It takes half a minute to even get the kid out of the car, and he’s panting as he does. “Ow – ow shit, Morgan –”

“Derek,” he corrects. He’s got one hand above the jut of Spencer’s hip and has allowed one of his spindly arms to wrap around his wrist for support. “Maybe I should’ve laced your candy with pain killers.”

“I’m not stupid,” Spencer mutters.

“Yeah, but you’re pliable if I distract you enough,” he wiggles his brows, helping the kid straighten up without heavy complaint from his torso. “Good?” He checks, keeping a steadying arm around his midsection.

“Uh-huh,” Spencer manages. He’s paled by a few shades, but he hasn’t started complaining about tunnel vision and Derek can tell he’s ready to ramble about Yellowstone for the next half hour.

“Go on then,” he huffs in good humour. Spencer tilts his head in confusion. “I know you’ve got the maps memorised. Take me to the closest sight and tell me all about the park.”

The boy seems to consider him for a moment, judging his seriousness before nodding happily.

“We’ll go the short way,” Spencer suggests. For a moment Derek is prepared to praise him on the preservation of his minimal pain levels, but then the action is negated. “The long way goes through the forest and Yellowstone is home to the largest concentration of mammals out of all the lower states.”

“Cool, so bears, then,” he deadpans. Spencer laughs, loud and openly as their shoulders brush together on every downward step.

“Birds too – in fact, there are over two-hundred and eighty-five different species, a hundred and fifty of which nest here specifically.” He hums in investment, letting the kid know he’s listening even if he’s got nothing to contribute. “I think – I mean, I reckon Gideon would’ve liked it here,” Spencer admits softly.

“You talk about him like he’s dead,” he responds. Spencer nudges a fallen branch with the toe of his shoe, continuing to lead them along the trail.

“Don’t you think he could be?” He asks after a stretch of silence. 

“Why would you think that?”

_“I’m proud of you.” Gideon’s voice had been pleasant. The praise brought more weight to the dopey smile he had been sure his old mentor could have seen from across the jet._

“I – it’s a possibility, why else wouldn’t he try to be in contact?”

“Spence, you know he would’ve wanted to cut any connections to us and our cases… It doesn’t have anything to do with you or him not wanting to stay in touch.” They slow at the peak of a hill, and Derek moves forward from the path, giving potential oncoming foot traffic a plethora of space.

“I just thought, maybe he’d – maybe he was… I don’t know.”

“Kid,” Derek presses, resting one gentle palm against his shoulder.

“He was there when I – yeah. I don’t know what I saw, but he was there,” he admits. He kicks patterns into the gravel beneath them, swinging from side to side as Derek makes sense of his words.

“When what?”

“Y’know, when I was –” Spencer waves his hand through the air, wriggling it uselessly as if in answer. “After the shot, but before the surgery, I’d assume.” Derek immediately rubs the bridge of his nose, inhaling thickly.

“So, what? Did you have an out of body experience, a dream –”

“I don’t know what it was! It was – I just saw him, okay? He was there and we were all on the jet, that’s it.” Spencer looks away at the mountains, frowning to himself and the lack of knowledge he could supply for the conversation. 

“Okay,” Derek says eventually. “That’s fine, c’mere kid.” He loops one arm across the back of Spencer’s shoulder blades and tugs him against his side. “Shit was hectic on both our ends then, I guess.” Spencer huffs, shaking his head with a smirk and dropping his forehead against Derek’s chest. 

“Kay,” he mumbles. “Good thing you’re my proxy, then.”

“Yeah,” Derek says stridently. “No more of that, huh. Dying while I’m in charge of your medical needs is now strictly forbidden.”

“Thanks,” he breathes, tucking closer to the heat Derek seems to perpetually radiate. They steep in the brisk air for several long minutes, listening to the distant waterfalls and geysers. Spencer has his eyes shut; half focused on the thumping of Derek’s heartbeat.

There’s scuffling as others pass them on the path, and Spencer can make out quiet rumbling of hushed conversation from his place against Derek’s torso.

“Um, hi,” someone says. He perks up from his remarkably comfortable placement to meet the eyes of two young women, similar enough in features for him to assume they were sisters. “Sorry, I just wanted to say that you two are cute together, and you look really happy.” Her eyes flicker between the both of them, her sister close behind, looking timid but supportive.

Spencer opens his mouth to, regrettably, break the illusion of their… romantic companionship when Derek steps in.

“Thank you! It’s actually our six-month.” Without looking, Spencer can _feel_ Derek’s self-assured grin. He merely gives a shy smile and avoids continual eye contact as the two girls ‘awe’ and continue on their way. “We look good together,” Derek teases.

He jolts as a heat presses against the flushed skin of his cheeks, a nose brushing across the shell of his ear.

“What was that?” He asks, dumbly, one hand lifting to touch the curve of his cheekbone where his co-worker’s lips had just made themselves a home.

“Getting you back, I guess,” Derek hums. His arm is still slung across his shoulders, two fingers tapping against his back.

Spencer pulls back, looking up at him until he’s stood straight and meeting his eyes dead-on. “Yeah?” Derek prompts, the righteousness in his tone wavering slightly.

“Shut up,” Spencer murmurs, reaching out to cup the man’s cheeks with both hands. He is pressing their mouths together before either of them have had the chance to take a proper breath.

\----

Spencer tastes of strawberry and hospital fruit juice. His lips part slightly, and no part of Derek’s primitive reasoning cuts in to stop him from reciprocating with fervour.

The kid makes a sound – a groan – that has him grinning into the kiss, pressing further forward until Derek finds himself in control. His hands wander lower, guiding Spencer closer against his front, angling their heads until he feels gentle nails digging into the fabric of his shirt.

They release, breath mingling in the cool air between them.

“That was um –” Spencer puffs, “that was – yeah, that was good.” He looks down to where his hands lay flat against Derek’s upper chest, letting them drop downward once more.

“Yeah,” Derek concedes. “Good is one word for it.”

_“Mhm,”_ Spencer hums. “Again sometime, perhaps?”

Derek laughs, tilting them back towards the trail.

“All you gotta do is ask, Pretty Boy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me feel warm inside.
> 
> @Svn-F1ower-cm is my tumblr if you have questions, comments, suggestions.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I read comments and grin at them like an idiot. I merely seek validation.


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